


Unbroken

by Sarcastic Ninja (It_Belongs_In_A_Museum)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Humor, POV Original Female Character, Romance, Sarcasm, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-05-11 16:33:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5633563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/It_Belongs_In_A_Museum/pseuds/Sarcastic%20Ninja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dead is dead.</p><p>Or at least that’s the way it’s supposed to be. You log a certain number of hours and get put on an express train to Heaven or Hell depending on which way your scales tipped. To Lizbeth Oswald, the idea of being dead wasn’t that troubling. After she bit it there was nothing she could do either way. You do your best and then that’s it. Dead is dead. She sure as hell never expected to be the punchline of some giant cosmic joke.</p><p>Being born into the life of a hunter taught you to manage your expectations.  Flea-infested motels, few if any friends, your dad leaves you with his curmudgeony old hunting buddy for ‘a few days’ and never shows up again—you learn to take life in stride. You learn to handle yourself. Which was why being killed off at 22 after one tango with a pissy demon dressed up as her roommate was so damn embarrassing. Dead was dead, right?  Thems were the rules.</p><p>Waking up in a pine box three years later had a way of making Lizbeth rethink that definition. Not that Lizbeth could dwell on it that long, seeing as there’s an Apocalypse going on and apparently she has a job to do. Oh, and there’s some blonde idiot who’s apparently in the exact same boat as she is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue - Paranoia

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. Any similarities in content or dialogue originated with the show. I only own Lizbeth.

Prologue - Paranoia 

December 7, 2005

She was being paranoid. She was just being paranoid. It was an occupational hazard for someone in her position, wasn’t it? Spend long enough in her line of work—grow up in her world—you get to learn everything can have a dark side, including sunflowers and puppies. So flitting shadows and the echo of cars backfiring weren’t exactly things to be ignored. Hell, at some point paranoia becomes a symptom of self-preservation. An instigating factor to promote proper preparation. But it had been some time since paranoia had been a necessary ingredient in her day-to-day life, so that instinctive shiver running down her spine and the slight prickling of hairs rising on her neck left her confused as well as anxious.

Lizbeth Oswald walked briskly down the darkened street. Her long, red hair, collected into a ponytail, swished back and forth against her neck with each determined step. She reached into the collar of her coat, pulling the scarf up to cover most of her round face. On days like this one the icy, biting wind had a way of turning her usually pale skin to a bright, marbled pink. If hell was ever going to pick a night to freeze over, the odds for this one seemed particularly promising. She peered over the edge of the knit, blinking rapidly. Her eyeballs felt as if they were solidifying inside of her skull—first watering, followed by the thin tears turning to ice as they leaked down her face.

Everything around her painted the picture of a quaint winter village, worthy of one of those 1950s black and white sitcoms where they cook everything in butter. Actually the town looked like someone had photoshopped the interior of a Christmas Eve Macy’s onto the landscape. Middlebury had a tendency to indulge in the holiday decorations alarmingly early, from the blinking lights to the inflatable reindeer sitting on snow-dusted lawns. All of it was so quintessentially suburban. Whether that was endearing or nauseating was up to interpretation, but something about frozen rivers and kids giggling on ice skates made Lizbeth feel a bit nostalgic. Snow crunched under her feet, if she inhaled forcefully she would undoubtably smell something nutmeg scented—so why did she feel so tense all of the sudden? Where the hell did you find the sinister in the midst of all this cheesy Hallmark Holiday Special bullshit? And yet there is was. Lurking. Like a lurker. A lurking lurker.

The trek she took was a familiar one, usually inspiring no excitement whatsoever. It started at the fitness studio where she helped teach Judo to middle schoolers on Wednesdays and Saturdays. From there it moved to the library where she spent a few hours cramming for whatever test was looming in the future. Finally it ended with a half mile hike to her off-campus apartment. She knew it well—she could walk it in her sleep.

Lizbeth pulled her puffy winter coat closer in around her, as if somehow that additional layer of clothing would afford her any extra degree of protection. Her gloves certainly weren’t doing their job properly, the harsh wind cutting straight through to her fingertips, but it wasn’t the weather that left her cold. For some reason she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched. She couldn’t speak to who or what was doing said watching or what their motivations might be, but a pit had settled in the base of her stomach a little over a week ago and hadn’t shifted since. It left her twitchy and squirming, an ant under a magnifying glass some chubby kid with cotton candy colored cheeks was trying to light on fire. Direct threats she was fine with. If some asshole came charging her with a knife, it wouldn’t bother her in the slightest. Or at least not to any unreasonable degree. Those were the problems she knew how to deal with. It was the problems that hid that bothered her—the ones that could sneak up on her.

Just then a shadowed figure darted underneath one of the nearby street lamps, all of which had been done up to look like candy canes. Lizbeth’s heart skipped a beat and her breath caught in her chest, searing her throat and lungs with the cold. Reflexively, her gloved hand plunged into her purse and closed around a small, silver switchblade that always lay at the bottom. Her eyes fixed on the shadow as she continued casually, not changing her pace. The figure came to a halt, and what she saw made her freeze.

Great. Fan-fucking-tastic. Her lurking lurker was a goddamn cat. A cute one too, worthy of multiple successful youtube videos. It stood in the spotlight of a street lamp, tiny little footprints in the snow leading up to it like it was in one of those Family Circus cartoons. She was definitely off her game if Mr. Fuzzles from down the block was giving her the heebie-jeebies. “Get your shit together, Oswald,” she muttered bitterly.

Shaking her head at herself, Lizbeth continued on her way but left her hand in her purse. Her fingers released the knife, instead finding their way around her cell phone. She pulled it out and bit the fingertips of her glove, pulling it off her hand so she could get at the buttons. Flipping the phone open, she punched in a familiar number before pressing it to her ear.

“Agent Tom Willis speaking,” a gruff, gravelly voice crackled out from the other side of the connection. Lizbeth’s lips quirked upwards and she snorted into the receiver, a sound which was immediately met with a frustrated sigh. “Goddammit Lizzie, is that you again?”

“Hey, Bobby!” she chirped, probably with more enthusiasm than she felt.

“Why the hell can’t you just call the fuckin’ home phone, ya idjit,” he growled in frustration, making her smile widen a bit more. “It’s there for a reason.”

“Because I find the idea of you as an F.B.I. agent endlessly hilarious,” she drawled out. “You know, with a suit and some wing-tipped lace-ups. Trimmed beard. Maybe some pomade.” She blew a breath between her teeth, letting out a hiss. “Wait…I think I described more of 1950s vacuum salesman.”

“I’m currently otherwise employed,” he grumbled. “As you well know.”

“How’re you doing, old man,” Lizbeth said, kicking at a clump of snow. “You eating your wheaties and all that good stuff.”

“You watch yourself, girlie,” he mumbled back. “Just because you’re about to graduate and get yourself a fancy college degree doesn't mean ya get to suddenly tell me what to do.”

“Please,” she scoffed, rolling her eyes heavily. “I’ve been telling you what to do since I was sixteen.”

“Then isn’t it about time ya shut the hell up?” he shot back. “Why are ya callin’ me anyways? Seein’ as finals are startin’ next week I don’t think the contents of my refrigerator should be all that high on your list of priorities.”

“That’s always gonna be on my list of priorities. You remember my saying, right?”

“Lizzie,” he growled, his tone warning.

“In case you need a reminder, it’s ‘more fiber, less bourbon’.“

“Lizzie, I ain’t in the mood.”

“Fine.” Lizbeth exhaled sharply and bit down on her lip, picking up her pace slightly. “I was wondering if you’ve heard about anything hinky going on in my neck of the woods. Lightening storms, crop failures, crime reports that seem a bit off—anything like that.”

“Aw, shit, Lizzie,” he groaned out in frustration. “You’re not out lookin’ for a hunt are ya? You’ve got enough goin’ on as it is an’ ya can’t divide your attention like that. You’ll end up gettin’ yourself killed. No hunts durin’ the semester, we agreed on that before—”

“I’m not looking for a hunt, Bobby,” she muttered, cutting him off abruptly. She swore under her breath and stopped for a moment, glancing to see is anyone was in earshot. Paranoia. It was running rampant. “Look, I’ve been having a bad feeling—call it intuition or a vibe or whatever the hell you want to call it—but…..my spooky radar is beeping like a pissed off fire alarm. I’m not looking for anything, but I’m beginning to get the impression that something’s looking for me.”

The line went silent, leaving Lizbeth with only far-off traffic, her own footsteps, and some metaphorical crickets to listen to. And then there was the odd Santa Claus leering at her from snow-dusted front lawns. The more she looked at them, the more unnerving they became. “Bobby?” she prompted.

“Give me a second, I’m checkin’.”

After a few minutes of rustling papers and quiet mumbling, the phone picked up again. “Garth’s huntin’ down a shape-shifter near Richmond, but other than that I’m not seein’ a damn thing anywhere near Middlebury,” his disembodied voice replied.

“Nothing?” Lizbeth demanded. “Nothing at all?”

“You’re probably just stressin’ out again,” Bobby informed her, his voice trying to put her at ease. “Remember at the end of your first year? You thought the girls’ bathroom on the third floor of the Anthropology buildin’ was haunted.”

“Hey, there were indicators!” she protested, pulling at the end of her ponytail in frustration. “Flickering lights and a cold spot. And they keep mummies in that building, Bobby. I shit you not, they have actual mummies. Let that stew a second.”

“There was shitty electrical work and you were standin’ under a vent,” he replied evenly.

“Oh, give me a break!” she whined. “I had just pulled two all-nighters in a row. I was running on 48 hours with no sleep. I slept like a full day after that. And I had to eat like three cheeseburgers to recover.”

“My point exactly,” he replied in a self-satisfied tone. “How much sleep have you been gettin’?”

Lizbeth sighed and pinched at the bridge of her nose. “Enough,” she replied evasively.

“Yeah, that’s what I though,” he muttered. “You been havin’ the dreams again?”

Lizbeth’s teeth clamped shut like the jaws of an animal trap—she was lucky she didn’t lose her tongue. She had been having the dream again—that recurring one that used to have her sweating through her sheets when she was a kid. Back pressed against the ceiling, pinned, unable to move. Loose hair dangling in her eyes, clouding her vision of the small white crib below. At first it was quiet, the mobile above the crib spinning hypnotically. Soon the soft plinking of a music box would begin, more threatening than sweet, building in volume until that fatal moment. Fire burst from her chest and spread outwards, eating her up until she was entirely engulfed in flames. It had returned a little over a week ago, around the same time that sick, paranoid feeling began eating its way into her bones. 

Only this time the dream had shifted. This time she wasn’t alone on that ceiling. Next there her she saw a familiar face—a woman with light brown hair, pale skin, and wide, hazel eyes to match her own. She recognized her mother’s face from the baby photos and home movies, but instead of the brilliant smile and crinkled laugh lines, Lizbeth saw lips contorted with pain and eyes wide with fear. When she closed her eyes that night, that face was seared onto the inside of her eyelids.

Taking her silence as a ‘yes’, Bobby swore loudly into the receiver, abruptly yanking Lizbeth out of her morbid reverie. “Listen up, girlie,” he growled over the phone. “Why don’t you give yourself a break? Take a load off, get drunk, paint your toenails and play truth or dare with those friends of yours—”

“I really don’t think you understand how college students spend their leisure time.”

“—and more than anythin’ else, get some sleep.”

Scratching absently at her forehead, Lizbeth nodded in agreement despite the fact that the person she was talking to was hundreds of miles away and most certainly could not see her. He was right. She was fucking exhausted. Between two jobs and classes, she was getting in less than four hours a night. Her eyes were itching something horrible. “Okay, Bobby,” she replied in a resigned tone. “You’re probably right. Let’s mark down the date and time for future reference.”

“Yeah, I’ll write it down at the top of the long list of other times I’ve been right,” he replied gruffly. Lizbeth opened her mouth to retort, but before the words had a chance to form on her lips her ears were met with a loud click as Bobby hung up. He was never the sort to dabble in the warm and fuzzies, but she loved that curmudgeon-y old bastard. As father figures went, he was a hell of a lot better than the one that shared half her DNA. 

By the time she arrived in front of her apartment building, Lizbeth’s feet felt as if they were encased in lead. Her footsteps hand morphed from crisp, clean imprints in the snow to sloppy drag marks. They came to a halt on the curb in front of the building as she surveyed the sight before her. It took a few heavy-lidded blinks before her brain accepted what her eyes were telling her as reality.

Somehow, in the sixteen hours she had been away, her lawn had been converted into a winter wonderland. Icicle lights, normal colored lights, wreaths, a literal family of snowmen—parents and offspring included—had cropped up. Her roommate, Amy, apparently dove headfirst into the Christmas spirit. The girl was worse than the neighborhood Walgreens—Christmas tunes had been leaking out from under her bedroom door since the day after Thanksgiving. Was it annoying as hell? Yes, yes it was. But she was usually inclined to give cute blondes the benefit of the doubt. Especially when that blonde happened to be the sweetest person on the face of the planet.

Trudging forwards, Lizbeth snatched the carrot noses from the snowmen’s faces before yanking open the front door. Salad for dinner, the fates had decided. It took a ridiculous amount of effort to haul herself up the stairs to the fourth floor. The second her toes touched the new Christmas-themed welcome mat that lay in front of their door, she let out an internal scream of victory and slid her key into the lock.

“Amy, Meg, I’m home!” she called out, alerting her roommates to her presence. “There had better be more of that sangria in the fridge, because after the day I had I’m going to fucking need it!”

Tucking the carrots under her arm, she tossed her keys in the bowl near her door and unwound the scarf from around her neck. Her face stung as the warm, dry air hit her cold skin, and she let out a sigh of relief. The apartment appeared to be in a state of transition. Red and green throw pillows had made their way to the couch and small ornaments littered most, if not all, horizontal surfaces. Lizbeth would have called the transformation complete had it not been for the cardboard boxes near the TV spilling tinsel and garlands onto the floor. “Jesus, Amy, it looks like somebody’s filming and ABC Family holiday movie in here!”

Letting out a fond snort, she shrugged out of her jacket and peeled off her gloves, tossing them and her bag onto the living room armchair. The television was on, set to one of those ridiculous soaps Amy loved so very much—‘Doctor Sexy, M.D.’ or something else with an equally on point name. Usually Amy would be curled up on one end of the couch, a bowl of in hand, eyes glued to the screen. Meg would sit on the other, feet propped up on the ottoman and alternating between exasperated sighs and commentary on plot inconsistencies.

But now the couch sat empty. And other than the melodramatic swells of music coming from the television, the apartment was quiet. “Hello?” Lizbeth called out again, this time with hesitation.

“In the kitchen!” Meg’s lilting voice sang. The sound of it gave Lizbeth the shivers. Meg was typically of the warm and comforting, if reserved, disposition. Lately, though, a certain aggressiveness had edged its way into her tone. And the way she called out had a sickly sweetness to it that veered more towards hostile than considerate. Another rude shake to her already on-edge nerves.

The sensation of anxiety in her rose as Lizbeth moved into the kitchen. When she turned the corner, what she saw as like a knife to the gut. Her arms dropped to her sides lamely, the carrots she had tucked aside clattering to the floor. “Jesus Christ!”

“Nope, try again.”

Meg sat at the kitchen table, feet propped up on the surface in front of her and casually eating a piece of chocolate cake. Next to her lay a bloodied knife and Amy’s ashen corpse. The other girl was positioned at the table as well, her head resting against the surface. She could have been asleep if it wasn’t for the pool of deep red blood, mixing with and congealing in her blonde hair. Lizbeth stayed rooted in the doorframe, unable to move. Meg smirked up at her, letting those wide, brown, milkmaid eyes of hers flick black.

“Hey, Beth! Sorry about the mess, but I had to make a call,” Meg—or the demon inside Meg—said through a mouthful of food, gesturing at an ornate chalice that rested near Amy’s head. Blood dribbled down its side, working its way into the twisting designs, iron meeting iron. “You know how it is,” Meg continued. “They get all panicked, heart rate and blood pressure skyrocket, and by the time you—” she made a slicing movement agains her own throat “—by the time you get to slit the carotid it’s gushing like the Titanic after it shook hands with the friendly, neighborhood iceberg. It totally stained my clothes, and you know how hard blood is to get out of wool.”

Lizbeth’s eyes, wide and watering, shifted from Amy back to Meg. All those small differences she had noticed over the past week came to a point. The demon had abandoned all pretext. The hair that had once been a dirty blonde, parted down the middle and hanging at shoulder length had been hacked off and dyed, now all hard, jagged layers, parted at the side, and gleaming like gold. The soft facial features were colored over by dark, dramatic eye makeup and a disdainful sneer. Only the clothes were familiar, but they still didn’t belong to Meg. The demon glanced down at its ensemble, almost as if it was reading her mind. “Oh, yeah,” she said, popping the collar of the red leather jacket she was wearing. “I took the liberty of borrowing some of your threads. Well, I say ‘borrowing’…..”

It was as if someone had shoved a needle into her artery and plunged a shot of adrenaline straight into her bloodstream. Electricity shot through her nerves, lighting her insides aflame. Fight or flight. Her fingers twitched violently, a raging urge filled her up, telling her body to rip that bitch’s head off and end her. But her head told her to stop. A cage match with a demon was not something she was prepared for. Alone, unarmed—this wasn’t a situation her wits could help her out of.

Lizbeth made a dash for the door, but before she could clear the doorframe of the kitchen it slammed shut. A primal growl erupted from her lips as she threw her weight against the wood, trying to force her way through, but it might as well have been made of steel.

A wicked little laugh burbled out of the demon’s throat as she watched with amusement. Her smile was wide and sinister, a smudge of chocolate frosting decorating her upper lip. Her thumb swiped across it, cleaning off her face before licking it away. “Please stop,” she said, looking at Lizbeth with an expression of pity. “You’re embarrassing yourself. You may or may not lose your life, but at least keep your dignity. Otherwise this is just sad.” Reaching a foot under the table, the demon slowly pushed out the chair opposite her, gesturing for Lizbeth to take it. “Please,” she said sweetly. “I’m not going to kill you—not yet anyway. I just want to chat. A little bit of girl talk. Without Amy. If we're all being honest, it was about time somebody cut her throat, don’t you think? All that whining about boys was seriously getting on my nerves. I mean, how co-dependent can you get?”

Lizbeth paused for a moment, eyes roving around the kitchen and searching for some form of escape. There was none to be found. So, begrudgingly, she moved towards the chair and sat down. “How the fuck did you get in this house?” she growled through her teeth.

The demon shook her head condescendingly, like she was scolding a small child. “Is that how you treat a guest? You’re not even going to ask my name?”

“Would you give it too me if I asked?” Lizbeth bit out.

“Probably not,” the demon responded, a wide smile painting her face. “But you can just go ahead and call me Meg.”

“I’m not going to call you that,” Lizbeth spat.

The demon made a face and shrugged. Lizbeth had seen that face every day for the last year, but now it was totally foreign to her. A stranger wearing a mask made of her friend. “Suit yourself. But I think the name suits me. And so does this body.” She held up a hand, inspecting it against the light—a society girl picking out her new dress. “Of course I’m going to have to dress it up a bit more—give it some style. You have no idea what it’s been like the last week, having to put on that drab wardrobe. What’s the point of having a smokin’ body if you wrap it in a burlap sack. The chick literally has nothing but earth tones.”

The demon allowed her hand to drop, casually swiping her finger through Amy’s blood and pressing it to her tongue like she she was sampling brownie mix. “Anyways, as for your question….” she continued, “a devil’s trap under the carpet is pretty unoriginal. That’s basic 101 level stuff—like I had to try hard to figure out that one. I do have to say, though, the one you drew on the ceiling of your bedroom in blacklight paint—that was clever. You almost got me with that one. And the water guns filled with holy water? Cute. Not that any of that is doing you much good now.”

Ignoring the stream of never-ending gloating, Lizbeth stole a free more glances at Amy’s crumpled form. A knot took up residence in her chest as she held onto the ridiculous hope that the girl might still show some small sign of vitality. But there was none to be seen. Her head was turned to the side, cheek pressed against the table. Her big, blue, innocent eyes were open and unblinking. They had already begun to cloud over.

“Oh, she’s dead as a doornail,” ‘Meg’ said, flicking some cake into Amy’s hair. Lizbeth dragged her eyes from Amy till they reached the demon. ‘Meg’ smiled coyly in the face of her mounting rage and licked her plate clean of frosting. “I’m being rude,” she said suddenly, snatching up the bloodied knife. I haven’t offered you any cake.” Using the knife she carved off a piece of the cake and slopped it onto her plate, tossing it across the table so it clattered in front of Lizbeth. “There you go,” she said, tossing over her fork as well. “Help yourself. Amy baked it, so you know it’s gonna be good.”

Lizbeth stared down at the plate in front of her, chocolate mixing with the dark, sticky blood. Her hands balled up into tight fists, the nails biting into the palms. The pain helped her focus—it kept her present. Metal glinted in the corner of her eye, and she sucked in a breath. After a few moments she shifted in her seat, gripping the edge of the table. “Why the fuck are you here?” she spat, bringing her eyes up to fix ‘Meg’ with an icy glare. “What do you want from me? Or is the endgame of the entire operation to sit there and make a gloating speech like a mediocre Bond villain?”

‘Meg’ rolled her eyes heavily and swung her feet off the table, scooting forwards and leaning towards Lizbeth. “So what if I like to play with my food before I eat it?”

“Until it comes back to bite you in your ass.”

‘Meg’ giggled again, making Lizbeth seethe. “Oh, you are adorable. This back and forth is downright cute. But you’re right—I’ve got a job to do and it’s getting late.”

“Finally,” Lizbeth growled, her right hand sliding a few inches down the table. “I was beginning to think you just liked the sound of your own voice.”

Wincing theatrically, ‘Meg’ placed a hand over her heart. “That hurts,” she drawled, “but I’ll let it go just this once.” She scooted in even closer, placing her elbows on the table and perching her chin on her folded hands to peer at Lizbeth through narrowed eyes. “I am here to find out why you are so goddamn boring.”

Lizbeth froze for a moment, her brow furrowing in confusion. What the hell was that supposed to mean? She cleared her throat and straightened in her seat, her right hand sliding a few more inches down the edge of the table. “Well honestly, that’s a bit rude,” she drawled. “I think I lead a pretty full life. Friends, hobbies, a little ghost-hunting on weekends and holidays. I have a lot of facets.”

“Cute,” ‘Meg’ said, arching a single eyebrow, “but that’s also not what I meant. Twenty-two years ago you were given an incredible gift. You were chosen—one of a select few, one of his children—and nothing? Absolutely nothing. Not a single premonition, not a soupçon of telekinesis. All the others are coming along swimmingly, but you? Not a damn thing. Why is that?”

The crease between Lizbeth’s eyebrows deepened as she narrowed her eyes at the lunatic opposite her. She tried to analyze the words as they were presented—parse them apart and rearrange them in a way that made some semblance of sense—but she came up short. “Am I supposed to have any idea what the hell you’re talking about?”

“You are a complication,” Meg murmured, the words close to a whisper.

“Okay?” Lizbeth replied, shrugging her shoulders. “Are you expecting an apology?”

“I would appreciate one,” ‘Meg’ replied casually, nudging Lizbeth in the shin with the toe of her boot. “I really haven’t enjoyed the trip to suburbia. And playing your friend here has been one giant snoozefest.” 

Whether it was more theatrics or genuine exhaustion that inspired the figure across from Lizbeth to yawn, she would never know. But regardless, when those eyes shut ever so slightly, she took her chance. The chair crashed to the floor as she threw herself to her feet. Her hand darted out to grasp the fork ‘Meg’ had carelessly tossed in her direction. In one swift motion, she lunged across the table and buried the blunted prongs deep into her jugular. Blood spurted violently, hitting Amy’s soft hair like the first pass on a Jackson Pollack painting. Lizbeth snatched up a nearby Britta pitcher, sending it sailing towards the demon before sprinting away without a second thought.

LIzbeth’s shoulder hit the kitchen door, this time managing to force her way through. Stumbling over her own feet, she careened through the apartment. Her head swam with the Christmas decorations surrounding her as she desperately tried to make it to the front door. She fiddled with the deadbolt, trying to unlatch the damned thing, but it just kept sticking. Great. She was going to die because her super was a lazy jackass. After what felt like an eternity, the lock finally clicked open. But no sooner did the door open half an inch, Lizbeth’s body hurtled across the room, colliding hard with the wall. An invisible force held her there, unseen hands circling her hands and feet, the tightest one of all around her neck.

“The Britta pitcher?” a scornful voice demanded. “Really?”

‘Meg’ slowly ambled towards her, drenched and still steaming from the holy water, looking simultaneously pissed and amused. “That hurts my feelings, Beth,” she pouted. “And here I was thinking we were getting along so well.”

“What can I say,” Lizbeth gasped out. “When guests overstay their welcome, I have a tendency to act out. You should have seen the way our last game night ended.”

Taking a few more steps forward, ‘Meg’ lifted a hand to Lizbeth’s face and smoothed back a few of her hairs in a way that was almost maternal. “I was so looking forward to getting to know you the fun way,” she murmured, caressing Lizbeth’s cheek with her thumb. “A knick here, a paper cut there, over and over again, and before we know it you’re singing the pledge of allegiance. But I’m on a deadline. So I’m going to fill you up, take a little stroll through your memories, and empty you out again. How does that sound?”

Leaving her pinned to the wall, ‘Meg’ left the room only to return a moment later. The kitchen knife glinted in her hand, the blade itself still covered with blood and frosting. Using her thumb, she wiped it clean before licking her fingers. “So where’s that anti-possession tattoo thing all you hunters have?” she asked through another yawn, gesturing up and down Lizbeth’s body with the knife. “You’re way too much of a prude for a tramp stamp, so it’s either the wrist or the shoulder blade.”

Lizbeth flinched violently as ‘Meg’ advanced on her. Using the knife, she sliced easily through the sleeve of Lizbeth’s sweater to reveal to the tattoo underneath. “Look at that,” she sighed in satisfaction. “Right in one. I should get a prize.”

No screaming, no crying. That was the deal Lizbeth had made with herself a long time ago. No matter how bad it gets, no screaming and no crying. There is much that they can take, but you can still deny them satisfaction. Teeth clenched and lips twisted into a grimace, she ignored the pain of the knife slicing her skin. Blood ran down her forearm, warm and sticky, dripping onto the carpet beneath.

‘Meg’ grabbed hold of Lizbeth’s throat and edged forwards till the two of them were nose to nose. Her lips curved upwards, that wolfish smile overtaking her face once again, leaving Lizbeth to glare back with as much venom as she could summon. After giving Lizbeth one last pat in the cheek, ‘Meg’ grabbed hold of her face and forced her mouth open.

“Say ah!”

A thick, billowing column of black smoke poured out of ‘Meg’s mouth and her empty body collapsed to the floor like a puppet with severed strings. The blackness swarmed around her face in a cloud. Lizbeth waited to choke on it, to feel something else inside her, taking her body and forcing her consciousness into a small corner to watch all the terrible things she would be forced to do. It flooded her nose and mouth, searing the inside of her throat and filling her lungs with ash. Her body convulsed violently as she waited to hear that sinister voice inside her own skull.

But the voice never came. Her chest heaved and shuddered until she forced out a hacking cough. The smoke spilled out of her lips and pooled at her feet. Even though her lungs were clear, Lizbeth forgot to breathe. 

The smoke rested there a few moments, squirming and writhing, and in that moment Lizbeth could swear it was a shaken as she was. Suddenly it shot towards Meg’s parted lips, disappearing into her body. The girl spasmed wildly and stilled, sitting bolt upright with a sharp gasp. Her eyes darted towards Lizbeth, glowering at her with something like accusation. ‘Meg’ climbed to her feet, brushing off her jacket and squaring her shoulders in Lizbeth’s direction.

“You know they say it happens to one in every eight,” Lizbeth managed to cough out, feeling a bitterly victorious smile form on her face.

The laugh ‘Meg’ let out was lighthearted, but didn’t fully hide her disconcertion. But then that disconcertion morphed into something entirely different. Rage.

“You are just one giant complication.”

All of the sudden, Lizbeth felt herself sliding up the wall. Up, up, and up until each vertebrae of her spine felt as if it was fused to the ceiling. Her hair had come loose and was hanging around her face. An invisible hand closed around her throat, but this time it had nothing to do with ‘Meg’. It was panic. Panic at the sudden certainty that today was the day she would die.

‘Meg’ sashayed over until she stood directly under Lizbeth, her face framed by loose strands of limp red hair. “It’s nothing personal, Betty,” she said brightly, “but you know what happens to the merchandise that comes off the assembly line damaged. It’s useless. Straight into the incinerator. It’s actually kind of poetic, you and mommy dearest going out the same way. Any last words?”

Lizbeth glowered down at the demon, her lips moving to form two crisp, clear words. “Fuck. You.”

“Well that was just beautiful,” ‘Meg’ replied. “I’m going to go stitch that on a pillow.”

With a final wave of her hand, ‘Meg’ strolled out, leaving Lizbeth there waiting for the fire to come. She shut her mind down, forcing all the bad out. And as the flames licked her body, she convinced herself they tickled.


	2. Lizbeth Rising

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. Any similarity in content or dialogue originated with the show.
> 
> I also want to thank every body who gave kudos, and a HUGE thank you to Nikita and Sammy for those comments! They are deeply appreciated.
> 
> Okay, onto the new chapter. I hope you guys enjoy!

“Son of a bitch!”

The words forced their way from her involuntarily, as if they had been waiting years for the chance to finally be spoken. Her lips trembled as the whisper was ripped from them, the air passing through them stale and bitter to taste. Her lungs shuddered with the force of it before heaving, as if they suddenly remembered how to work. Pain seared her throat as she hacked and coughed, the interior cracking and splitting like paper left too close to a fire.

Disorientation. If her mind had been clear enough to choose a particular word, that would have been the most likely candidate. The pounding of her head echoed in her ears. Her eyes stung as if she was staring directly into the sun, even though all they could see was black. And she swore she could here her lungs crackling with each panting breath they sucked in, like someone had just poured milk into a bowl of rice krispies. 

Her surroundings were completely quiet but the silence screamed at her, almost accusing her for crimes she couldn’t name. The shrieks had filled her ears for so long, being without them was just as jarring.

Where the hell was she? Her skin tingled with the memory of a blistering heat, but met only cool, stagnant air. It made every inch of her sting, like she had been scrubbed head to toe with a coarse wire brush. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, glancing around searchingly for any clue as to her location, but all she was confronted with was that same oppressive darkness. Wherever she was, it was pitch black.

Lizbeth reached out, blindly feeling her way around. She was lying flat on her back, letting her fingertips drag across the surface beneath her. They met the rough grain of some sort of wood. Six inches of space to her left, six inches to her right, and four inches above her nose. This was not good. This was very, very not good. Still examining her surroundings, her fingers found some sort of fabric. A dress, some sort of polyester based concoction by the feel of it. As she began to sweat it stuck to her skin, itchy and uncomfortable and completely impractical. She wouldn’t be caught dead in something like that. Or maybe she would, as it was becoming increasingly obvious that she was currently trapped inside her own coffin.

“Hello?” she called out, her voice coming out in a weak croak. “Is anybody there? Help!”

Swearing at herself, she slammed her fist to her forehead. “Don’t be an idiot, Oswald,” she whispered to herself. “Nobody can hear you.”

Calm, steadying breaths—that was what she needed. Gentle, calm, steadying breaths. An average sized coffin would give her about five hours of oxygen. A claustrophobia-induced panic attack would use up half of that and wouldn’t exactly help her out of the situation. Useless and counterproductive. 

Reaching upwards, Lizbeth felt along the lid of the coffin. The seams between the planks were relatively wide and certain places were moist and rotten, making the roof sink in some parts. All in all, the thing was poorly constructed. She could have been offended if not for the fact that she might not be able to bust herself out of a better model. She felt for the edges of the planks, digging her fingernails into the wood. It splintered as she clawed, shards wedging themselves under her nails. The grimace of pain that followed caused her dried lips to crack and bleed. “Come on,” she muttered, trying to find the right angle to get enough leverage. Her fingertips clamped down on a plank with a vice-like grip to the point that she managed to haul her body up off the base of the coffin, trying to use her weight to pry it loose. “Come on, you motherfucker.”

Lizbeth’s grip slipped and she collapsed, hitting her head hard at the base of the coffin and leaving her with a worse headache and absolutely no progress. A pained hiss escaped her and she shifted to her side. The sharp edge of a rectangular, solid mass dug into her hip and she stopped. Pushing aside the fabric of her dress, her fingers closed around something cold and metallic. She snatched it up and felt the edges to determine what it was, smiling at the small grooves at one end of it that formed the shape of a pentagram. “Thanks, Bobby,” she murmured to herself as she flipped the switchblade open. It might be rusting at the hinges, but it was still sharp.

Finding the seam again, she slid the blade between the planks and wiggled it from side to side. The rusted nails creaked as they were wrenched out of the wood and Lizbeth pressed harder. A small crack opened in the wood allowing a stream of dirt to spill in, settling on her face and filling her mouth. She tried to spit it out, gagging at the musty taste in her mouth, but the complete lack of saliva made it impossible and she was forced to swallow some of it down. Because that was entirely sanitary.

With all of her strength, Lizbeth pried back the wood, pushing the knife until its hilt was pressed against the roof. The pressure was enough to make the wood separate, creating a gap wide enough to fit her fingers through. She began to yank it loose, ignoring the splinters pricking her skin. The gap began to widen, fracturing under the weight of the dirt above. Lizbeth pulled at the boards, the planks groaning with each movement. Eventually the worn wood gave way with a muffled crack, allowing the soil to collapse and crush her.

Lizbeth coughed as the dirt hit her chest, causing her to breathe it in and choke on it. She needed to get to the surface. Sifting through the dirt, she found the next plank, slamming the heel of her hand into it until the nails came loose and it could be pulled away. More dirt rushed in, burying her in an anthill. The space where those two planks used to reside was narrow, but wide enough for her to squeeze through. 

Slowly, she managed to dig herself out. Four feet. If she had to hazard a guess, that’s how far down they put her. It didn’t seem like that much when you were staring at the ‘you must be this tall to ride the rollercoaster’ signs, but that was four feet of her heart pounding in her ears and her lungs screaming for air. Four feet of wondering if she actually had to crawl from the deepest bowels of the underworld—if she’d get stuck on the way up. Four feet of her wondering if she’d even find a surface. And internal cry of victory filled her chest as she felt her hands break the surface. The sun beat down on her skin and blades of grass brushed against her fingertips. Soon enough she managed to extract her whole arm, followed by another. Then her head and torso. Her body slowly and painfully hauled itself out of the ground like the earth was giving birth to her. Now that was a disturbing thought.

As soon as she was free Lizbeth tried to stand, only to fall to her hands and knees again. Her empty stomach twisted and she retched, acid rising in her esophagus. She hacked and coughed, her elbows buckling beneath her. Her cheek hit the cool grass and she crumpled forwards, lying in a heap. Allowing herself a moment to catch her breath, she rolled over onto her back, blinking rapidly as the world slowly came into focus. A clear blue sky stretched above her, dotted with a few sparse cotton candy clouds. Closing her eyes, she felt the sun beat against her skin. It was warm. Not burning and painful—just a simple, comforting warmth. She had thought she’d never feel something like that again.

Pushing herself up on her elbows, Lizbeth took in her appearance. She was clothed in a what looked like a knee-length homecoming dress purchased by someone who likely didn’t have a clue what they were doing. It had probably once been a pristine white, but was now yellowed with time and streaked with dirt and blood. A a pair of silver heels still clung to her feet, though the strap of one of them had broken and it was hanging askew. The perfect costume choice for zombie prom queen. Who the hell had buried her in that? They closed the lid on her while she looked like Polly fucking Pocket.

Lizbeth clambered to her feet, removing the ridiculous shoes, and wiped the sweat and dirt from her face. And then, for the first time, she scanned her surroundings. Cold fear flooded through her veins.

“Holy shit.”

It looked like a massive explosion had gone off, her unmarked grave the blast point. Shrubs, trees, the remains of what was probably once a small wooden shed—it had all been flattened to the ground in a perfect circle. Too perfect for nature. And it was unsettlingly quiet. Not a bird, not a leaf crunching under foot, not a gust of wind through the trees. Nothing natural. Lizbeth spun around frantically, her eyes eyes raking over the scene before her. Inexplicable destruction with her at the center of it. Why was she back? Who—or what—had brought her back? She was made up of all questions and no answers.

She needed answers. She needed to get home.

Holding the shoes in her hand, Lizbeth stumbled out of the field, blindly trying to find her way to the nearest road. Her toes curled into the grass with each step that she took, trying to convince herself that it was actually real and not some sick hallucination. After what felt like hours, she burst through the brush onto a dusty two-lane highway, mostly abandoned by the look of it. She picked her way down the shoulder, weaving slightly as the exhaustion and dehydration took their toll. In the back of her mind it occurred to her that she probably looked like one of the movie extras at the end of ‘Carrie’. Eventually she found a road sign. “Topeka, KS 23 miles’. So she was in Kansas. Good to know.

She lost her shoes at an unnamed crossroads. The black asphalt singed the soles of her feet as she walked. She needed water. Badly. The road itself seemed to shimmer and twist before her eyes.

At least four hours passed before she got her first hint of civilization, if you could go so far as to call it that. A small diner stood at the side of the road, a flashing neon sign and poster of a dancing chicken on the front. Its eyes were terrifying—giant and bugging out of its head. Lizbeth tripped over her feet as she climbed those few steps and threw herself into the door with a loud thunk. The sign read ‘closed’, but she rapped her bruised and bloodied knuckles against door, peering desperately into the window in case anybody was there. In her experience breaking into already occupied buildings was rarely a good idea, legally speaking.

“We’re closed!” a thick, feminine southern drawl called out from somewhere in the back. Lizbeth knocked again, louder and more insistently. “Didn’ ya hear me?” the voice shouted. “We’re closed!”

Lizbeth banged her fist against the door almost violently. With a stream of loud cursing, a slightly older woman appeared from the back room, bottled blonde hair with dark brown roots pulled into a loose pony tail, a thick layer of makeup, and a scowl firmly planted on her face as she unlatched to door and wrenched it open. “Will ya fuck off?! I said we’re—”

The words died on the woman’s lips as she took in Lizbeth’s appearance. “Oh, honey! What the hell happened to you?”

“I could use a little help,” Lizbeth croaked out, adopting a southern accent. It usually gave you an edge, identifying with the people you used for help. Odds were she’d need a free meal and some spare cash for a bus ticket. People were a lot more likely to help if they felt a connection with you.

“Of course, sweetheart,” the woman said, widening the door to let her through. “Come on in.”

Within ten minutes, Lizbeth found herself sitting in a window booth with a half-empty pitcher of water and plate of steaming eggs and toast. She shoved the food into her mouth at an alarming speed. The woman—Tammy—sat at the other side of the booth, head propped up on her hand and staring at Lizbeth with an intense look of pity or alarm. The dark makeup bled into the small wrinkles around her eyes and lips, giving her an especially harsh, pinched look up close. Lizbeth kept glancing up at the woman’s eyes, wondering if they would suddenly flick black. But they didn’t. She had kind eyes. And they stayed that way.

“Ya know if you eat any faster ya might choke on it.”

Lizbeth paused and put down her fork, dabbing at the corner of her lips with a napkin. “Sorry,” she mumbled with a sheepish smile.

“Nothin’ to apologize for,” Tammy replied with a wave of the hand. Lizbeth took this as an indication to keep eating—she would have taken a loud sneeze as an indication to keep eating—and proceeded to snatch up her knife and fork. “I just wish Saul was here to cook you up some hash browns,” Tammy continued. “A small girl like you needs all the meat on her bones she can get. ‘Specially after such a tryin’ experience.”

“Oh, this—” she mumbled through her food, waving at the plate with a knife “—this is amazing. I can’t thank you enough. I owe you so much. I’m afraid I don’t have any money on me to pay—”

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” Tammy replied. “It’s just some eggs, we’ve got plenty of ‘em. But I do think I deserve an explanation as to why there’s a half-dead young lady sittin’ at my doorstep.”

Lizbeth swallowed heavily and nodded. Time to come up with a valid story. Spin a yarn and knit a sweater out of it.

“The truth of it is,” she mumbled, taking another giant bite, “I don’t rightly know how I came to be here. See, I’m a student up at Kansas University. I was pledgin’ this sorority—the Phi Delts—and they took us to this party. I was havin’ a lot of fun at first, and then one of the older girls gave us some sangria. It was delicious, but then I started ta feel all woozy. I must’ve passed out ‘cause the next thing I know I’m wakin’ up looked in some shed in the middle of God knows where. I had to force my way out and ended up scrapin’ myself up somethin’ fierce. I think it mighta been one of those hazin’ rituals ya hear about on the news.” She let out a shaky breath and folded her hands on the table as primly as she knew how. “My daddy told me I shouldn’t join. I should’ve listened, but I can be so pig-headed sometimes.”

Tammy clucked and shook her head. “You poor thing,” she murmured in a maternal tone. She stretched a hand across the table, grasping Lizbeth’s hand in hers. The sudden pressure on her bruised knuckles made Lizbeth wince and stirred something in her. Distrust, fear, pain, vulnerability, hostility. A whole host of emotions she didn’t care for, but couldn’t think of a way to avoid. She quickly snatched her hand back, yanking it out of Tammy’s grip. The woman’s mouth opened slightly, confused and alarmed by the sudden move, but she said nothing.

Inhaling sharply, Lizbeth steadied herself. A few self-conscious glances and an insecure smile should be enough to do the trick. Her father hadn’t done all that much for her over the years, but he had given her the tools of a damn fine con artist. It probably wasn’t something to be proud of, but it was certainly useful. Clearing her throat slightly, Lizbeth bit her lip in a vulnerable way and looked at the woman across from her full in the face. “Listen, Tammy, I hate to ask you any more favors—you’ve been so kind to me already—but I was wonderin’ if maybe I could borrow some clothes and get myself cleaned up? And if I could use your phone, that’d be great too. My daddy’s probably worried sick.”

Tammy stood up to make her way around the booth. She made a move to clap a hand on Lizbeth’s shoulder—probably comfortingly—but Lizbeth found herself drawing back. Instead Tammy grasped the edge of the booth and smiled warmly. “Of course, sweetie. I’ve got a spare uniform in my locker and the landline’s in the back room. You can get yourself changed in the ladies’ room. You finish your food and I’ll go get those clothes.”

Lizbeth nodded in thanks and returned to her plate while Tammy made a move to the back room, but a question cropped up in her mind. “Hey, Tammy?” she called out, causing the woman to pause and turn back towards her.

“Yeah, hun?”

Lizbeth opened her mouth and closed it again, unsure of how to phrase it without sounding like a lunatic. “You, uh, you wouldn’t happen to know the date, would ya? My memory’s a bit hazy….”

Tammy shot her yet another pitying look, the poor, misguided youth that she was. “It’s September 18th, Caroline.”

“Right…..” Lizbeth drew out, biting her lip nervously. “And what year is it?”

Tammy blinked in shock, her jaw falling open slightly. “It’s 2008, Caroline,” she said quietly. “Are you sure you’re alright? Do you think you’ve got a concussion or somethin’? I can call the hospital.”

“Nope,” Lizbeth replied quickly, shaking her head and staring intently at her plate. “No, I’m fine. Just checkin’ is all.”

Tammy afforded her one last suspicious look before disappearing into the back. She returned a few minutes later and placed a comb along with a neatly folded white T-shirt and black pair of shorts on the table before returning to set up the diner. Lizbeth was grateful to be outside her direct scrutiny. The mask was slipping as it was, turning her assumed personality into a Salvador Dali-esque nightmare painting instead of a viable human person.

September 18th, 2008.

Three years. Those two words rang in her head, echoes of them traveling through her body and making her hands shake. Like a gong had been smashed right next to her ears. Three years. She had died almost three years ago, and now she was back topside again. Why was she back? It wasn’t like she was complaining, but there weren’t that many potential answers to the question, and all of them terrified her. Whatever wanted her walking the earth had waited almost three years to get their shit together. Why was she so important now?

Grabbing hold of the clothes, Lizbeth quietly slipped out of the booth, darting past Tammy who was dancing along with the music blaring out the jukebox while mopping the floors. It didn’t take her long to find the phone in the back office. She snatched the handset and eagerly punched in the familiar number. Bobby didn’t change the filters on his air vents for half a decade—no way he would bother trying to change his number. “Come on, come on, come on,” she whispered to herself, bouncing up and down on her heels in anticipation as the phone rang. “Come on, Bobby, pick up the fucking phone.”

As if on cue, there was a loud click on the other end of the line. “Agent Tom Willis speaking.”

A breath escaped her and Lizbeth’s shoulders sagged forwards, some of the tension finally leaving her body. “Jesus, it’s good to hear your voice,” she murmured into the phone. She was met with dead silence, making the smile on her face falter. “Bobby? Bobby, it’s Lizzie.”

The only response she got was the click of him hanging up, followed by a rather rude-sounding dial tone. Sighing heavily, she dialed the number again, her fingers drumming anxiously against the table as it rang and rang. For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to pick up again, but then she heard the telltale click. “Who the hell is this?” she growled angrily. “What do you want from me?”

“Has anybody ever told you it’s rude to hang up on someone?” she asked with forced levity. “I mean I know I haven’t called in a while, but damn Bobby, that’s no reason to be—”

“This ain’t funny,” he responded in a deadly tone. “I don’t know who you sick bastards are or what you think you’ve got to gain by callin’ me, but if you try again, I will fuckin’ kill you.”

“Bobb—”

She wasn’t even able to get his name out before he hung up. Swearing under her breath, Lizbeth slammed the handset down in frustration and snatched up her clothes. She marched to the bathroom, making a conscious effort not to slam the door behind her. 

The bathroom was much like the rest of the diner—worn and a little decrepit, but generally well cared for. The fixtures had a light layer of rust in the crevices, but they were clean, smelling vaguely of Lysol, and though the wood of the stalls were littered with small fractures, they had a fresh coat of dark green paint. Slinging her clothes over the edge of the stall, Lizbeth yanked out about a thousand paper towels and turned to the sink to soak them. Her eyes fell on her reflection in the mirror and she inhaled sharply.

It was the first time Lizbeth had gotten a proper look at herself since she crawled out of that hole in the ground. Dirt was smudged across her face and embedded in her hair. A deep, mangled cut gash decorated her left temple where one of the splintered boards had hit her as the grave caved in. She tentatively lifted one of her hands and lightly pressed her fingers against the wound, wincing at the sharp sting. It wasn't pretty, but she had had worse.

Turning on the tap, Lizbeth scrubbed at her hands, cleaning out all the nicks and cuts with soap as best she could. The waste basked began to fill up with piles of dirtied and bloodied paper towels. Slowly but surely she was beginning to look like an actual human being.

Lizbeth twisted her arms behind her back, grabbing the zipper of that stupid fucking dress and yanked it down. It fell and pooled around her feet, layers and layers of horrific polyester. “Good riddance,” she muttered, kicking it to the side. The thing deserved to be salted and burned. She quickly turned to grab Tammy’s extra uniform, but out of the corner of her eye she got a glimpse of herself in the mirror and froze.

All of her scars were gone. Each and every one. That set of claw marks across her back she had gotten at fourteen, back when her dad was hunting down a wendigo and she had yet to fully understand the phrase ‘stay in the car’, that rippled discolored circle of skin on her abdomen from the time that ghost had shoved her into a pipe, that series of almost clinical cuts that used to litter her forearm she earned from a tango with a demon when she was sixteen—they were all gone. And she was pissed. She loved those scars, she had earned those scars. They were a badge of honor, a documentation of all the shit she had lived through, and they had been erased like lines on a chalk board.

Only one mark was left on her body—one indicator that she hadn’t lived her life as a carefree coed. But to add insult to injury, or lack thereof, it wasn’t a mark that she recognized. Lizbeth twisted slightly to get a better look at it. The now smooth skin of her waist was marred by an angry, blistered handprint. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” she whispered, running a hand over the offending area. “What are you?”

Not wanting to dwell on that question any longer, Lizbeth yanked the white T-shirt over head head and pulled on those black short-shorts. The tightness of the outfit left her looking like an off-brand Hooters waitress, but it was still better than than dress. She grabbed the comb Tammy had lent her and violently yanked it through her hair. Three years worth of knots were pulled loose, accompanied by a shower of dirt falling from the tangles. Finally she pulled her hair back into as neat a ponytail she could manage. She needed to get home. She needed a proper shower, a warm bed, and some answers in whatever order they came to her.

Lizbeth leaned forwards, planting bother of her hands on the stained porcelain of the sink in front of her and staring at her reflection. What she saw made her blink in surprise. It wasn’t that the reflection didn’t look like her, because it did. But it was a different version of her than the one she had last seen. Her face had no makeup, her eyes were bloodshot and red, and her skin has a sort of sickly pallor to it. She looked old. Not old in that she had suddenly developed a set of wrinkles overnight that somehow turned her into a Disney witch, but old as in wearied. There were bags under her eyes that made them look purple and bruised, and there was a hollowness her expression that gave her the appearance of one those war veterans in the specials they run on the History Channel. She looked like someone who had seen too much. And she had. Jesus, she really had. And she got the distinct impression there was seven more coming.

Turning around, Lizbeth lifted the hem of her shirt and took another long look at the scar. What the hell could leave a mark like that? After a few moments she pulled the shirt back down and smoothed the clothes against her frame before exiting the bathroom. She made her way back to the dining area, that dirty dress of hers wedged under her arm and Bobby’s knife tucked neatly in her back pocket.

Tammy was busy setting out paper placemats, still dancing along to the jukebox. She did a little twirl, but stopped suddenly when she caught sight of Lizbeth standing there. “You’re lookin’ better, she said with a friendly smile. “I was wonderin’ if there was really a young lady under all that dirt.”

“Thank you,” Lizbeth said, smiling back. “I’m feelin’ a lot better too. I talked to my daddy an’ he’s—”

Lizbeth’s easy lie was cut off as the music from the jukebox began to waver and falter. It faded in and out, overtaken by a loud static. Tammy walked over and smacked the side of the thing hard to get it working again. “I keep tellin’ the manager they need to replace the damn thing,” she whined. “Or at least bring someone in to do some repairs. But I’m just a waitress—nobody ever listens to me.”

Lizbeth was about to smile and come up with some vaguely sympathetic platitude, but all of the sudden the TV in the corner of the room flicked on of it’s own accord. An ESPN talk show filled to screen for a moment, but it was quickly replaced by aggressive static. Tammy grabbed the remote and turned it off, but almost immediately it turned itself on once again.

“What the—”

A piercing, high pitched sound began to ring in Lizbeth’s ears. She glanced over at Tammy who had already clapped her hands over her own. “What the hell is that?” Tammy called over, fear filling her eyes as they darted between the jukebox and television. 

Lizbeth swore loudly. “Where do you keep your salt?” she called out, letting her southern accent drop.

Tammy blinked at the sudden change, a look of alarm filling her eyes. “Why do you need salt?”

“Just tell me where it is!”

When Tammy didn’t respond, Lizbeth made a move towards the kitchen. The ringing seemed to get stronger with each step until it became unbearable. Lizbeth stumbled forwards and fell to her knees, clapping her hands over her ears as her face screwed up in pain. Her skull felt as if it was vibrating, the bones grinding against each other, about to fracture. The screens of the television and jukebox shattered and the windows began to bend and ripple, threatening to follow.

“Get down!” she shouted to Tammy. “Get under one of the tables and cover your face!”

Tammy looked at her with wild-eyed confusion, mascara streaking down her face along with her tears. She seemed to understand what Lizbeth had said, though, because she dove under a table just as the windows began to shatter. Lizbeth wedged herself under one of the booths, covering her face with her arms as small shards hit her, causing a thousand tiny nicks.

After about a minute the sound subsided, but Lizbeth’s ears still rang. It was like watching one of those old war movies. A bomb goes off and everything after that is muddled, like listening to a conversation while your head is under water. Slowly, Lizbeth moved her arms away from her face to find Tammy staring at her with an expression of terror and accusation.

“Who the fuck are you?”

Lizbeth decided not to answer. Not just because she didn’t want to, but because part of her wasn’t sure she could anymore. She grabbed her things and sprinted out of the diner, ignoring the tiny shards of glass sticking to her bare feet, and burst through the front door.

Two cars sat in the parking lot, an old beat-up pickup truck and a used, but well cared for Honda Civic. Lizbeth glanced back and forth between the two, debating which one to take. For a trip as long as the one she was about to make, the best bet would be the Civic. But she couldn’t make herself ignore one detail—the novelty license plate that read ‘Tam-ster’. Okay. She was going with the piece of shit pickup.

With the dress wrapped firmly around her arm, she swung her elbow back hard into the passenger side window. The glass shattered and spilled onto the peeling vinyl interior. Lizbeth quickly unlocked the door and climbed inside, pushing the driver’s seat back and laying back with her head under the steering wheel and her legs resting against the seat back. Using Bobby’s knife, she popped out that panel above her and the wires fell out. She quickly pried out the right ones, cut and stripped them, and tapped them together till the engine roared to life. Sighing heavily, she sat up and placed her hands at the steering wheel. It was going to be a long trip.

Five and a half hours. That’s how long it took her to get from Topeka, Kansas to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Five and a half hours of squeaking wheels, a malfunctioning gas gauge, a broken air conditioner, and a radio that for some reason could only play AM stations. Of all the shit things that had happened to her over the past day, that car would take the number one position. She had done someone a favor by stealing the damn thing.

Lizbeth had to actively stop herself from slamming her foot down on the pedal and speeding the whole way there. Driving a stolen truck was risky enough without the window being bashed in. Not to mention having to siphon gas from a few parked cars at a truck stop. Throw in a traffic violation or two, it would be a perfect recipe for an arrest. Which would be further complicated by the fact that she was legally dead. Plus she was shit at paperwork and all that bureaucratic bullshit. Her first impulse was usually to write 'balls' in every blank provided.

The sun was about three quarters of its way through the sky by the time she pulled into Singer Salvage Yard. The orange rays bounced off the piles of useless metal, giving the useless shells an almost ethereal look. Pretty, even. The same as always. Three years later and it was still the same as always. At least some things stayed sacred.

Lizbeth let the truck idle in front of the house a few moments before climbing out. How do you tell someone who grieved for you that you’re suddenly not dead anymore? Should she burst out of a cake? Should she get some streamers first? Should she grab a skateboard, do a kickflip, and shout ‘I’m back, bitches!’ at the top of her lungs? Somehow she doubted showing up on the doorstep with a wide smile and a cry of ‘surprise!’ would go over all that well. And he hadn’t taken the news that well over the phone.

Fuck it. She had to do it sooner or later.

Closing her eyes, Lizbeth took a steadying breath before wrenching open the car door. She walked up the steps of the front porch and came to a stop on that old, faded welcome mat, raising her hand to knock. But before she made that last move, she paused and listened. Two voices echoed inside the house. Two of them. The way she remembered it, Bobby wasn’t exactly known for his hospitality. Guests were more likely to be met with a shotgun than a pitcher of lemonade. Shaking her head, she tried to organize her thoughts and rapped her knuckles against the door three times.

Footsteps approached the front door and she took a small step back, preparing for the look Bobby was about to give her. Hopefully there would be more joy in his expression than fear or horror. But when the door swung open, it revealed a face she didn’t recognize. Tall, sandy blond hair, a sharp jawline, and piercing green eyes that were staring at her with a hefty dose of suspicion. The guy—whoever he was—looked her up and down, his eyes lingering on her bare feet. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the doorframe, leveling her with an accusing look.

“Who the hell are you?”

Lizbeth folded her arms across her own chest, mimicking his posture. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“I asked first.”

Letting out at sigh, Lizbeth raised her eyebrows pointedly. “Look…guy….” she said, waving a hand absently. “Under normal circumstances, I’d be more than happy to have this get-to-know-you chat. We’d talk, I’d make some witty remarks, you’d inevitably find me endearingly charming. After that, we might go grab pizza, become besties, maybe road trip it to see a Broadway showing of ‘Wicked’. But you happened to pick the day were I really don’t give a shit.”

She brushed past him and stepped into the front room, inhaling deeply. It smelled just like she remembered—old books, cheap bourbon, and cigars. She had missed that smell.

“Hey!” they guy called out after her. His voice was rough, like a tire rolling over gravel. “Hey,” he said, following her as she marched inside. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Lizbeth ignored him and wound her way through the rooms. “Bobby!” she shouted. “Bobby, you get your old, drunk, curmudgeon-y ass out here right now!”

“Look,” she guy said, advancing on her, “I don’t know who you think you are, but—”

“Can it, Derek Jeeter,” she said, holding up a hand to cut him off. “Robert Singer, you get in here right now or I swear to God I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” a gruff voice said from behind her.

Lizbeth spun on her heel to find the voice. When she saw him, she couldn’t help the smile creeping onto her face. He looked exactly the same—same beard, same ratty old hat, same everything. Clearing her throat, she reached into her back pocket and pulled out the silver switchblade. A shadow of recognition passed behind Bobby’s eyes when he saw it, but staid nothing.

Flipping the knife open, she held it up for him to see. “Silver blade,” she muttered, drawing it across the skin of her forearm to form a long, thin cut. She snapped it shut and tossed it across the room. Bobby snatched it easily out of the air and inspected it carefully, exhaling sharply as he got a good look. When Bobby finally looked up at her, she waggled her eyebrows at him. “Holy water?”

Bobby reached into his breast pocket and tossed her a flask. Lizbeth caught it and poured the contents down her throat before chucking it back at him. “If I call you, are you gonna hang up on me again?” she drawled, not bothering to repress her smile.

Bobby didn’t smile—he never smiled. He just gave a single, definitive shake of the head.

“It’s good to see you, Lizzie.”

The grin that spread across Lizbeth’s face was so wide her cheeks began to ache. She half-walked, half ran towards him, throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder. She took a deep breath. It smelled like home. She just had to learn what that word meant again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Soundtrack
> 
> 1) Busting out of the grave.
> 
> -~-~-~-~-~-I tried to pick a song to go here for a while, but honestly I think that silence is best for this type of moment. She's stuck in the quiet and it's driving her crazy, so any song would compromise that. No song here.
> 
> 2) Lizbeth walks through the forest, trying to figure out where she is. 
> 
> -~-~-~-~-~-Break My Heart And Mend It - Hero Fisher
> 
> 3) The trip down the side of the road.
> 
> -~-~-~-~-~-Young Man - Rayland Baxter
> 
> 4) Tammy starts the jukebox and Lizbeth goes to the back to change clothes and call Bobby.
> 
> -~-~-~-~-~-Nothing You Can Say - Holly Golightly
> 
> 5) The jukebox falters and the windows break. Lizbeth runs out and steals the car before taking off down the road.
> 
> -~-~-~-~-~-Saints At The Gates - The Golden Dogs
> 
> Please comment and review. It's always very much appreciated and helps feed the muse living in my basement.


	3. Road Trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Awkward first encounters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: 'Supernatural' isn't mine. Shocking, right? But it's true. If there are any similarities in content or dialogue, it has probably originated with the show and the amazing Mr. Kripke.

Well, this was awkward.

Lizbeth wasn't quite sure what she had expected from a post-death reunion with Bobby. Such an occasion wasn't one typically rehearsed or prepared for. No Hallmark card in production could accurately reflect the sentiment—she had checked damn near every gas station and Walgreens of the I-29. Needless to say, the situation in which she found herself was fairly unique. Not wholly unique, though, which in the end was the source of her dilemma.

During those five hours in the rattling car, Lizbeth had run through how that scene would play out. The pair of them were never going to smile and laugh and skip through a meadow holding hands like people did in Claritin commercials. In the most likely scenario Bobby would light her on fire and/or come at her with a silver blade. Not something she could blame him for—had their roles been reversed that would be her first move as well. Then she would reveal herself as being the one true Lizbeth and they'd have a fun story to talk about over beers while they sat on the front porch and watched the sun set. It would end with a single exuberant, slightly angsty, and overly emotional hug followed by a moment of stalwart silence and a firm handshake.

In the end Lizbeth did get that hug, but what followed....it was a steaming pile of awkward. Because in all the iterations of her reunion with Bobby that ran through her head, not one of them included a staring contest with some random hunter guy with pretty eyes and a sour face.

Tik, tik, tik, tik.

The only sound filling the house was the labored, tired work of the antique grandfather clock in Bobby's office. She sat at the broken down table in the kitchen, a stained but clean rag pressed over the cut on her forearm. The bleeding caused by the silver blade had slowed to a trickle, leaving little to be mopped up by the coarse material. The first—or second—scar for Lizbeth 2.0. Blondie sat opposite her, face frozen in a scowl, as Bobby rummaged around in his library. What he was looking for, Lizbeth couldn't say. If any books of his books provided insight into their current predicament, they were relatively recent additions to his collection. As much as Lizbeth wracked her brain, no point of reference for unsolicited raising of the dead came to mind.

The walls of the house felt strange around her. They still offered the embrace of a home, but at the same time all the years she missed had been painted over them like unwelcome graffiti. During her tenure at Singer Salvage Yard it had already been somewhat decrepit— from the moment she crossed the threshold, duffel bag slung over her shoulder, the burgundy wallpaper sagged off the sheetrock and the rust and dirt had always lived in the crevasses. But it had always been maintained, dining table swept clean, dishes in the cupboard or the dishrack, dirtied window screens cleaned or replaced, broken light bulbs immediately swapped out. The house had been lighter, both in the practical and atmospheric sense.

Abandoning the rag, Lizbeth traced her fingers over the surface of the table where she had eaten so many meals. It was now covered with stains, many leaving the damning imprint of the base of a beer bottle. Some drunken, desperate mosaic. The house was littered with empties, from the kitchen counter to the floor of Bobby's study. The evening light snuck in through the dusty curtains, glinting off them almost prettily. Lizbeth hoped they were the product of weeks of accumulation, but the brimming trash can told her otherwise. This was just how the house looked now. Like Bobby had just thrown a rager to get an 'in' with the cool kids.

Lizbeth's gaze shifted from her surroundings, back to the guy sitting across from her. He didn't even show the tiniest flinch as her eyes connected with his. He had yet to look away. Eyes wide, harsh, and unblinking, he stared at at her like she was a terrorist or cast member of The Real World. With suspicion and distaste.

Lizbeth returned his look with a demure smile. "You know if you keep scowling like that, you're gonna age yourself prematurely. Crow's feet are a bitch."

No response. Not even a twitch of his nose or furrowing of the eyebrows. His aloofness would have been admirable had it not also been supremely fucking annoying. And how anybody could manage to retain his degree of composure while that clock ticked maddeningly in their ears was far beyond her comprehension. Lizbeth already found herself twitching, but she had never been one for stillness.

"Maybe you should invest in some moisturizer," she continued, injecting some false levity into her tone. "You know, before you have to cross that bridge. No?"

This time he did respond, but only with a scoff and a roll of the eyes. Lizbeth rolled her own eyes in turn. "So are you always this broody," she said, waving one of her mangled fingers in his face. "Or are you just practicing your 'Blue Steel' for some local men's perfume ads?"

He let out a bitter snort and raised his eyebrows at her. "Don't you mean cologne?" he asked, his voice still impossibly rough. It sounded of late nights and a full glass of whiskey, like the male equivalent of Janis Joplin.

Lizbeth's lips twitched as she refused to let her features form an full smile. "They're the same thing," she replied. "Don't tell me you're so insecure in your masculinity you have to call it by a different name."

Again, they lapsed into an awkward silence, and Lizbeth's head filled with the ticking of that damn clock. As beautiful as it was, her fingers twitched with the urge to take a sledgehammer to the damn thing. She had always hated it. Each second that passed was marked, each little tick another moment flying away as she got closer and closer to the grave. Though maybe that fear shouldn't exist anymore. She had already died once. Now each tick was a moment she got back. All gravy.

"Aw, fuck this," she muttered, pushing back from the table. The chair legs scraped against the cheap linoleum of the kitchen floor. Dropping down, Lizbeth crouched down at the cabinet below the sink, hoping that some things about the house had stayed the same. Low and behold, behind the industrial-strength bleach was nestled a bottle of Four Roses bourbon, hidden away for special occasions. This sure as hell better constitute one such occasion. If she was about to re-christen her liver, it would be with the good stuff.

Lizbeth slammed the bottle on the kitchen counter with a loud thunk. She went for a glass, yanking open the cupboard doors only to find them empty. All the dish-ware lay in the sink or distributed across the house, covered with varying amounts of rotting food. She managed to unearth a sponge and some dish soap, scrubbing down a few glasses and bringing them to something resembling clean. The guy was still watching her, the suspicion written in his face clear even from his weak reflection in the window above the sink. "You want in on this?" Lizbeth asked, sending a smirk over her shoulder. "I mean I have nothing against drinking alone, but having someone watch you drink....it's not what I'd call a party."

"How do you know Bobby?" he asked, his gruff voice equal parts accusation and uncertainty.

A chuckle slipped past Lizbeth's lips and she turned around, glasses in one hand and bottle in the other. Hooking the leg of her chair between her bare toes, she pulled it back and sat down at the table. "Bobby's family," she replied simply.

"Really?" he asked in a skeptical tone, waving in her general direction. "Because I'm not seeing all that much of a resemblance."

"Well, if you want to talk biology, then no, he isn't," she muttered. "But in all the ways that matter he is. Family doesn't end with blood." For some reason something she said seemed to silence him. Lizbeth eyed him with an equal degree of suspicion. "How do you know Bobby?"

He stared back evenly. "Bobby's family."

"Well," Lizbeth said, exhaling sharply. "I always heard family reunions were uncomfortable."

His eyes narrowed even further as she removed the bottle's stopper and poured the amber liquid into two of the glasses, reserving the third for Bobby's appearance. Again with the awkwardness. Maybe this was what it felt like to be a child of divorce. One day you give your dad a call, only to find that he's engaged with a whole new replacement family, complete with a pregnant fiancée. And then they try to mend fences by sitting everybody down for Thanksgiving dinner, ignoring the fact that nobody wanted to be there in the first place. She was living an episode of the Brady Bunch. Lizbeth pushed the second bourbon across the table, and the guy accepted it, but hesitated to drink.

"So if Bobby's family," he continued, leaning forwards, "then why haven't I heard of you before?"

Lizbeth took a long draught, hiding her mirthless smile behind the rim of her glass. "Probably for the same reason I've got no fucking clue who you are," she said evenly.

"Yeah?" blondie demanded. "And why's that?"

"I don't know," she drawled sarcastically. "It might have something to do with the fact that I've been a bit busy being dead for the past couple of years."

The bourbon about half way down this throat was suddenly lost in a spluttering cough. "Wha—"

Lizbeth smiled and lifted her glass to him in a salute. "Up until this morning."

Any surprised exclamation he was about to make was abruptly cut off as Bobby made his way into the room, a thick folder tucked under his arm. He pulled up a chair and unceremoniously dropped the folder on the table, grabbing the bourbon and filling his glass almost to the brim. "So I take it the two of you've figured out ya got a little somethin' in common," he grumbled, taking a heavy swallow.

The guy let out a single, bitter laugh, grabbed his bourbon, and downed the contents in one go before slamming it on the table. "What are you talking about, Bobby?" he said. "Are you talking about the fact that we're both Aquariuses or the fact that we've both mysteriously risen from the dead?"

"Wait, what?" Lizbeth demanded, frantically glancing back and forth between the pair. "You too?"

"Well I certainly ain't talkin' about your sparklin' personalities," Bobby interrupted. He waved his hand between them, a feeble gesture of introduction. "Dean Winchester, meet Lizbeth Oswald. Lizzie, this is Dean."

Lizbeth held up a hand, indicating for them to pause. "Hold up, Winchester?" she demanded, a deluge of data assaulting her already baffled brain. "Winchester as in John Winchester? Bobby, I thought you guys were on the outs. Something about you shooting him with an ass full of rock salt if you ever saw him again?"

Bobby send a fleeting look her direction, something akin to guilt marring his features. Once again, she was left with the distinct feeling her adoptive family was cheating on her. "Yeah, well...things happened."

"Yeah, no shit."

"Hey!" the guy—Dean—interjected, waving a hand in front of them. "While this reunion is all touching and heart-felt, we can hold hands and stare longingly at each other later. I think we've got some bigger priorities here." He turned to Lizbeth and gave her an expectant look. "How did you die?"

Lizbeth let out a snort and drained the rest of her bourbon. "Buy a girl dinner before you ask those kind of personal questions."

Bobby uncapped the bottle of bourbon once more, reaching over to refill her glass. "I know it's probably not somethin' ya wanna think hard on, Lizzie," he said, "but we've got ourselves a predicament here, an' I've still got some blanks I'd like filled in."

He pushed the manila folder towards her, his hand lingering on it a few moments like he wasn't certain he wanted her to see its contents. It was well worn, surface wrinkled and rings of coffee stains almost hiding the faint stamp on the front. Middlebury Police Department. Lizbeth's eyes flicked up to Bobby who was staring down at his bourbon, face obscured by his cap. She flipped the folder open and thumbed through the papers within. The pages inside had yellowed with time, but no dust met her fingertips. It had been recently opened. "How di—"

"I drove up to Middlebury when I got the call," he muttered. "Figured the best way to get the story was to bring the suit and the badge."

"You always did look good in a suit."

The folder fell open to reveal the crime scene photos within. They showed her old apartment, reduced to a husk. Every surface had been blackened, burnt to a crisp. The living room had gotten the brunt of it. She could only assume the corpse crumpled next to the charred remains of the sofa was herself, a little 'Exhibit A' marker located by the head. It was lying face down, limbs splayed out at odd angles with broken Christmas ornaments decorating the floor around it. A few tufts of red hair were left behind along with a scrap of flannel from her shirt, but the skin was red and blistered or missing entirely. Presumably there enough was left of her face for positive identification. Lizbeth found herself wondering who bothered to bury her in that dress to begin with. She had been half cremated already—why not finish the job?

The twist of nausea in the pit of her stomach made her turn the page, only to find herself staring at a second horror—one she had already seen. The fire had been extinguished before it touched the kitchen. Amy still lay at the table, head resting in a puddle of her own blood. Amy Broderick, Exhibit M. The chalice had disappeared, all demonic elements removed. As was the platter of chocolate cake. Leave the corpses, take the baked goods—those were the demon's priorities.

Lizbeth had seen worse. But she hadn't lived through what led to it.

It had been because of her. Amy died because of her. Meg was possessed because of her. The photos and carnage existed because of her. She hadn't pulled the trigger, but she brought the gun to the door. 

And Amy? The world didn't have many bright spots, but she could have been one of them. Amy was good. Amy was kind. Amy was the type of person you didn't think could exist outside of fiction because she was too damn decent. Too warm and welcoming. The type of person who would make you chicken noodle soup while she was sick and would laugh at even the shittiest of puns, not out of pity but because she actually found them entertaining. Her childhood dream had been to be a social worker—not an actress, not a princess. The first thing she ever wanted to do was help people. And Lizbeth had gotten her killed. For a demonic phone call. A beautiful person became a quarter shoved in a payphone. Because of her.

Lizbeth's eyes began to ache, water slowly collecting in the corners. Suddenly she became aware of the other eyes in the room, the ones focused on her. Bobby was still staring at his lap, so it was Dean whose scrutiny bored holes into her skin. Clearing her throat, Lizbeth flicked the moisture out of her eyes and snapped the folder shut, pushing it away from her. "What, uh, what was the official report?"

"Double homicide with a side of arson," Bobby murmured. "They decided somebody killed you and your roommate—set the fire to cover it up. The murderer was never caught."

"Yeah," she snorted. "That sounds about right."

"Li—"

"Right," Lizbeth interjected, nodding her head as she pushed forward. "Right. Well I guess all that was almost three years ago now. To sum it up, I showed up at my apartment and found out some demon bitch possessed my roommate, Meg Masters."

"Meg Masters," Bobby interrupted, finally raising his head and exchanging a look with Dean. "There was nothin' about a Meg in that file."

Lizbeth shook her head. "No, there wouldn't be. Not unless they talked to her friends, and...Meg was shy, she didn't have a ton of those. Amy had the lease and handled all the utilities—Meg and I were subletting and we'd only been there like two months, so there wasn't really a paper trail for either of us. My guess is the demon took all her stuff, kept the body. Anyways, it seemed like she had been watching me for a while. She spouted some stuff about me being boring? Apparently I was supposed to be one of the Avengers or something—she kept talking about mind control and telekinesis. She tried to possess me, and next thing I know she's pinning me to the ceiling and lighting me on fire. Good times."

For a moment she considered telling them the crack 'Meg' had made about her mother—them dying the same way—but instinct told her to hold her tongue. The name Winchester came with a heavy reputation. Great hunter, intelligent, ruthless. Good to have at your side when your interests are aligned, but when they weren't....God help you, because John Winchester had no intention to. From everything she had heard about John, every interaction should come with a warning label: proceed with caution. Lizbeth was never one to cling to the sins of the father, particularly give her own father's history, but as she told her story a look of recognition had flickered in Dean's face, tense jaw paired with a slight widening of the eyes.

"And that's it?" Dean asked, raising his eyebrows at her. "That's all you know?"

"Yeah, that's all I know," she replied, sarcasm edging into her tone. "It's not like she tied me to a chair and gave me a play-by-play rundown of her plan."

"Do you remember anything else?" Bobby asked. "After you got killed, that is."

Lizbeth blew out a long breath and shook her head. "Nothing really, I guess somebody wiped the hard drive," she responded, tapping on her skull. "I've got no idea where I've been the past few years. One second I'm giving startlingly new authenticity to my Human Torch impersonation and the next I'm in a coffin in Kansas wearing some ridiculous dress." She took a long sip of bourbon before turning to Bobby. "How the hell did I end up in Kansas anyway? Why would you bring me there? Kinda out of the way."

Bobby's expression, already shadowed beneath his baseball cap, grew even more grave. "I didn't get ta bury you," he growled. "Somebody'd already claimed your body by the time I got there."

Lizbeth's hand instinctively tightened around her glass. "Well then who the h—"

"Your dad," Bobby responded. "The morgue said your body was signed out by a Frank Oswald."

It was as if someone had taken a syringe full of ice water and plunged it into her veins. She could only be grateful that the chill didn't make her to shiver, but instead caused her insides to freeze and harden. "Well," she bit out through clenched teeth. "I guess he is alive, then. Mystery solved. And transporting bodies across state lines, so between that and the dress he stuck me in he's committing crimes of both inter-state commerce and fashion."

A silence settled over the table, leaving the three of them to quietly nurse their drinks. None of them were contented to be doing so—too much was left to be discussed—but given the subject matter, respectful segues were in short supply. Dean seemed the most impatient of the lot of them, spinning his glass against the table with increasing force.

"Look," he muttered, "not to be insensitive or anything, but we've got bigger stuff going on. As far as you know, did your dad salt and burn your body?"

Lizbeth smiled back wanly. "The burning was pretty much already taken care of."

His eyes fell shut and his hand clenched, nails grating against the table surface. A gesture of both frustration and sympathy. Probably more frustration at this point. "Not what I meant."

"Yeah, I know," Lizbeth replied. "I don't know if he decided to add any seasoning to the barbecue. But I'm back, so he must have forgone that step in the process. He always did play fast and loose with the process."

"Do you think he found a way bring you back?" Dean pressed.

The stare with which Dean fixed her was serious and reserved, but she detected a hint of desperation driving it. Which in and of itself didn't seem out of place. All hunters lived with shadows behind her eyes. Those she knew lived in her own were named Amy and Meg, along with a number of others. But his desperation of was a more pointed, present variety. "I doubt it," she shrugged. "It's been three years, why bother now? Plus all indications seem to point to something bigger than a semi-competent hunter pulling this off."

"Indications?" he drawled, sarcasm seeping into his question. "What sort of indications?"

Exhaling sharply, Lizbeth pushed back her chair and got to her feet. Silently, she turned her back to Dean and Bobby, rolling that white uniform shirt of Tammy's up to reveal her waist. The angry red handprint was exceptionally bright against her pale skin. The silence she received in response was answer enough. Prognosis? Not good. She yanked the hem of her shirt down and plopped back in her seat, contemplating drinking straight from the bottle instead of using the glass as an intermediary.

"I know," she muttered, bobbing her head along with her words. "It looks like I got groped by the son of Satan. Plus, whatever it is, it might be stalking me. Caught up with me at this run-down diner off the highway in Kansas. It decided to screw with the jukebox and then blew in all the windows."

Dean let out a loud groan and ran his hands down his face in frustration. "Well, shit."

Lizbeth shot him a questioning look which, upon its receipt, incited him to strip off his plaid flannel over-shirt. He rolled up the left sleeve of his T-shirt, revealing a handprint on his bicep identical to her own. Lizbeth let out a bitter laugh. "Matching tattoos," she groused. "Well that's just fucking adorable, isn't it?"

"Still think Sam made a deal to bring you back?" Bobby asked, nodding in Dean's direction.

Lizbeth drained the contents of her second glass, wincing as the liquor burned her throat. "Okay," she said, wiping at the corners of her mouth. "Who the hell is Sam?"

"My brother," Dean said in that low, gravelly voice of his. "And I don't see what the hell else it could be."

Lizbeth scrunched up her face and gave him a skeptical look. "Are we talking a crossroads deal? I'm assuming your brother knows what those are. What the hell kind of idiot would make a move like that?" Bobby suddenly stilled, once again becoming preoccupied with the glass in his hand. Dean, on the other hand, slowly turned to face her. If looks could kill, the one she received from him was a freaking massacre. Right. He was that kind of idiot. "Oh," she chirped sheepishly. "Sorry. I'm sure it was a noble cause."

A silence fell over them once more, forcing her to, once again, confront that damn ticking noise.

"Look," Lizbeth declared, determined not to let the silence stand, "if we think that your brother got a crossroads demon to fuck with the status quo, it does not explain why I'm back. My soul should be exactly where I left it."

"Well maybe whoever this guy was just picked up a passenger on the way," Dean responded gruffly.

"How does that make any sense?" Lizbeth demanded incredulously. "This big bad is dragging you out of hell and decides to make a detour and pick me up too? Out of the goodness of its heart?"

"Maybe your dad and my brother arranged it together," he growled. "Ever think of that?"

"What, they co-signed on a crossroads deal?" Lizbeth demanded, eyebrows disappearing into her hairline. "Are they splitting a time-share in Boca Raton, too?'

Bobby sighed heavily and took a long sip from his glass. "Are we really gonna try and find some logic in this situation? In case ya haven't noticed, the usual rules don't seem to be applyin'. Dean should be wearin' his insides on the outside and Lizzie, you should be charcoal."

Dean slowly pushed himself up from the table, his hands planted firmly on the surface. "Look," he said, steely determination in his eyes. "My brother is in Pontiac, Illinois. I'm going to Pontiac, Illinois. We can listen to what he's got to say and go from there."

Set jaw, tense shoulders. Everything about his posture bespoke an urgency that would not be dissuaded. Lizbeth didn't pretend to know jack shit about Dean Winchester, but apparently he wasn't a man easily deterred. The crossroads demon angle was still a load of crap—there was too much wrong with the scenario. The complete restoration of her body which by all rights should still be barbecued like a 4th of July hot dog, the handprint, the idea that her dad cared enough to sign for her....none of that lined up with a typical demon deal. Or her dad. But a thin lead was better than no lead at all. And Dean had no intention of budging. Fuck it. She was in.

"Fantastic," Lizbeth drawled, clapping her hands together with false enthusiasm. "Road trip. We can sing songs, eat fast food—Bobby you're paying, I'm still legally dead and without credit cards. It'll be like a family vacation, dysfunction and all."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Dean said, holding a hand up and indicating for her to stay seated. "Slow your roll there, sweetcheeks. Who says you're coming? We're not selling Girl Scout cookies—this is some seriously bad mojo we're dealing with."

Lizbeth let out a bitter snort and pushed herself up from the table, hands planted against the surface and mimicking his posture. She was going for a certain degree of intimidation, but that never really worked well when you were eye level with the nose of the person you were confronting. Still, though, she held her ground, flashing him a dangerous smile. "Listen, sweetcheeks," she said, the sugary sweetness of her voice complementing its murderous undertones. "I don't know you, you don't me, so I'm going to let that one slide. But don't ever patronize me. Next time I will beat your ass so bad you won't be able to find it with two hands and a flashlight. 'Kay?"

Dean held her gaze for a moment before shooting Bobby an inquiring look. Bobby simply shrugged in response, a look of vague amusement hiding beneath that hat.

Lizbeth took a step back from the table and folded her arms across her chest. "Look, I don't give a shit if you don't play well with others," she said, staring Dean down. "Like it or not, I'm in this too. And if your brother has some answers for me, I'm going to be there to hear them. Whether you like it or not. Now is this something you're going to continue to bitch about, or can we all be on our merry way?"

The tendon in Dean's neck continued to twitch dangerously, but his head sagged on his shoulders, which Lizbeth took as a gesture of resigned consent. "Great," she sighed. "Now that we've reached that consensus, I've got to go wash the death out of my hair. We'll be on the road in fifteen minutes, so get your crap together. In the meantime, I'll be in my room."

"Hold up," Dean spluttered, turning to Bobby. "She has a room?"

Not bothering to respond, Lizbeth brushed out of the room and marched up the stairs. They creaked louder under her feet than they had the last time she made that trip. Bobby and Dean's voices echoed through the thin walls of the house, now embroiled in a not-so-hushed argument. It made her stomach twist. Never in a million years had she thought she'd be something for Bobby to argue about. It had just been the two of them for so long, she had never thought introducing a third party would be an issue. But three years had changed a lot of things. Maybe she was the third party now. Maybe she had to justify herself to Dean as much as he had to justify himself to her.

Lizbeth made a beeline for the bathroom, grabbing one of those ratty, worn towels out of the cabinet. Stripping off Tammy's too-tight uniform, she stepped into the cracked porcelain tub and yanked on the rusted lever to turn on the water. The pipes thunked loudly, and the water sprayed out of the shower head with a violent spurt. The cold droplets made her twitch, but she stayed under the cascade, waiting for it to slowly warm. Shivers soon gave way to the warm embrace of steam, and Lizbeth ran her hands through her hair.

It had been literal years since her last shower. The clear water that left the shower head gathered in the drain, turned a frothy red and brown from the dirt, blood, and soap. Lizbeth scrubbed hard, enjoying the stinging sensation as the soap worked its way into the little nicks and cuts she had accumulated over the last day. She'd come out on the other side feeling shiny and new. That water would extinguish the feeling of flames licking her skin. It had to. But as she scrubbed her fingertips dragged over that raised mark on her waist. The heat of the shower left it even more vibrant before.

There were no fresh starts. Not for her.

Lizbeth stepped out of the shower and wrapped the ratty towel around her, padding down the hallway to the third door on her left—her room. The latch seemed to stick, the door resigning itself to being shut after years of lack of use. With a bit of jimmying, Lizbeth managed to force it open. Stepping through that door was like stepping through a time portal. Lizbeth Oswald, the teen years. The only difference was the thick layer of dust that had settled and the stack of cardboard boxes in the back corner. Bobby had brought back her things from Middlebury, and by the looks of it nobody had entered the room since.

It wasn't your typical teenage girl's room. Hell, it wasn't your typical human being's room. No posters of cute actors or bands—no posters of any kind. In it stood a dresser, a desk, a bookshelf, and a bed in the far corner. No frills, no decorations, no nothing. Back in Middlebury Amy and Meg had been confused by the sparseness of her room, but Lizbeth bad never been one for embellishing things. Maybe it was a product of her youth. When you spend your formative years living out of motels, you learn not to carry things with you. Sentimentality was synonymous with wasting space.

Lizbeth marched to the stack of boxes in the back. The glue of the duct tape holding the cardboard shut had dried with time, leaving it easy to yank away. After rifling through her old clothes, Lizbeth pulled out a mid-thigh length denim skirt, a tank top, and a plaid flannel over-shirt. Another box and a pair of boots later, Lizbeth had shoved a few more articles of clothing into a duffel and was marching down the stairs. Combing her hair through her stringy, damp locks, she walked into the kitchen. Bobby and Dean still sat at the table, talking in hushed voices with serious expressions painted across their faces. As she entered they abruptly stopped speaking, leaving her looking at them expectantly.

"Well?" she demanded, shoving her hands deep in her pockets and raising her eyebrows at them. "Are we going or not?"

Dean rolled his eyes heavily as the two of them stood, grabbing a jacket as he moved to the door. Lizbeth sighed and scratched absently at her forehead. This was going to be a long-ass trip.

\--------------------

Well, this was awkward.

Four hours of the I-29 south lay between Bobby's Chevelle and the salvage yard. The sun had sunk below the horizon somewhere around Omaha, Nebraska, and Bobby had fallen asleep in the back seat not long after. Whether or not that nap had anything to do with the flask of bourbon tucked neatly in his breast pocket wasn't something Lizbeth wanted to dwell on. Nor was the question of how much damage to Bobby's liver her death had inflicted. At least asleep he didn't seem to hold the same weight on his shoulder as he did conscious. Some of the wrinkles in his face smoothed out, leaving him looking less burdened, if not younger.

One unfortunate side effect of Bobby's sleep? Lizbeth had to endure another full hour of tension-filled silence being perpetuated by the not-so-subtly hosting guy sitting next to her. And at least another four hours of road lay ahead of them. Pontiac, Illinois couldn't come soon enough. Lizbeth doubted anybody had ever been as eager to get there as she was in that very moment.

Lizbeth sank low in the passenger's seat and propped her feet up on the dash, staring at her boots as she tapped her toes together. Each minute or so she could feel Dean's eyes on her, trying to measure her up or unearth her secrets via the power of brooding stares. Every time she stole a glance in his direction, though, his eyes had already flicked back to the road. Jesus fucking Christ. If this went on much longer she might have to do something drastic like throw herself out of the window.

Dean Winchester's face was like a house with all the curtains drawn, closed off, unwelcoming, and enigmatic. If the eyes were the window too the soul, he damn sure wasn't going to let you look unless he wanted to. And he didn't want Lizbeth to see a damn thing. With each car they drove past on the highway, the beams of the headlights revealed that same hardened, uncompromising expression, eyes narrowed and eyebrows furrowed in a look of intense concentration. The dude had yet to unclench his stubbled jaw. He was an orthodontist's worst nightmare.

Her look must have lingered a little too long, and he glanced in her direction, his eyes sharp and accusing. "Can I help you with something?"

Lizbeth held his gaze unflinchingly and let out a sigh, twisting in her seat so she could face him. "Okay, look," she said, her tone matter-of-fact, "you've obviously got some sort of problem with me. That's fine, whatever, I don't really give a crap. But if we're going to be stuck in this car for another four hours, I'd rather not have to deal with the tension. So let's get some sort of 'conflict resolution' thing going. If it comes down to it we can pull to the side of the road and do trust falls."

Dean's hands gripped the cracked vinyl of the steering wheel a bit tighter, white knuckles visible even in the dim light. He jutted out his dimpled chin in frustration, but nodded in reluctant acquiescence. "Alright, Lizzie—"

"It's Beth," she interrupted. He looked over at her, eyebrows raised sardonically, but she simply shrugged and folded her arms across her chest. "There have only ever been three people who get to call me Lizzie," she said. "One's dead, one's apparently not as dead as I thought they were, and the other's asleep in the back seat snoring like a bear with emphysema."

"Fine, Beth," Dean drawled, his voice tinged with sarcasm. "I don't have a problem with you. I don't know you. I don't know anything about you. Bobby seems to think you're good people and that means something, but frankly I'm not quite on board with this road trip yet."

"I get it," she replied, biting her lip and nodding. "You've got your little team together over the past three years. You know each other's business, keep each other's secrets, share each other's problems—you've got yourself a little boy band. That's fantastic for you, but it's not my fault I was gruesomely murdered before you and Bobby staged your reunion."

"Never said that it was."

"I get that I'm a stranger to you," she barreled on. "And I get that trust issues are probably a requirement for you. But right now you've got a problem, and your problems are my problems, so you are stuck with me for the immediate future."

His jaw twitched slightly at her words, which was likely close to agreeing as he'd ever get. Lizbeth sighed heavily and let her head fall against the seat behind her. Those three years had changed a lot—too much. And as close as she and Bobby had been, she was the one left dancing at the sidelines like a chump. Which meant that she was the one who had to make the effort here. "Okay," she said tiredly. "How about twenty questions? Ask me whatever you want."

Dean studied her for a moment, judging her sincerity. "Okay," he said in a measured tone. "Let's start out with how you know Bobby. Why have I never heard of you before?"

"Well, Bobby's never exactly been a 'sharer'," she said using air quotes. "Maybe he didn't think I was a relevant topic of conversation."

"But you've got a room in his house," Dean insisted. "How the hell did that work out?"

Lizbeth blew out a long breath and pinched at the bridge of her nose. Her tragic backstory wasn't her favorite topic of conversation. It was long, filled with teenage angst and daddy issues, and any discussion of it felt like self-indulgent wallowing. It was a story she had locked away in the filing cabinet in the corner of her brain in a metaphorical manilla envelope labeled 'shit not to think about'. But one thing she hated more than that backstory was long, sullen silences. Time to open up the fucking 'sharing circle'.

"My dad was a hunter," she replied. "A demon killed my mom when I was a baby. He never really felt the need to share the details, but he did feel the need to dedicate his entire life to vengeance. He used to take me along with him on his hunts—I'm sure you know what that's like—but then one day when I was sixteen after an....incident, he dropped me off at Bobby's—said the hunt he was going on was too dangerous for me. He was supposed to pick me up in a couple of days. A couple of days turned into a week, turned into a month....before I know it I'm done with high school and Bobby's the one going to my graduation. Then I went to college, then I died. That's it. That's my story."

Dean let out a long, low whistle. "Did you ever hear from your old man again?"

"Nope," she said popping the 'p'. "He used to send me postcards on my birthdays and major holidays. Then he just sorta stopped. I figured he was dead until Bobby said he was the one to pick me up from the morgue. Either way, I think we've parted ways on a permanent basis."

"Don't you think you should let him know that you're alive?" he said, judgment coloring his voice.

Lizbeth snorted loudly. "He didn't give a shit until I was dead. If anything, me being alive again would reduce his emotional investment. Why should I bother? It's not like I'd have a clue how to find him anyway."

Another silence fell over them as they bumped along the poorly paved highway. Dead and/or estranged dads, not exactly the most uplifting of topics. Then again, at the moment there weren't many topics up for discussion that weren't depressing as hell. Lizbeth shot Dean a sidelong glance. "So how did you die?"

Once again, Dean's hands tightened on the steering wheel.

"Hey," Lizbeth said, throwing her hands in the air in submission. "I showed you mine. Hell, you got to check out some flash photography of mine. I'm just asking for a little reciprocation."

Dean ground his teeth loudly, but eventually nodded in assent. "Alright, fair's fair."

"Great," Lizbeth drawled, shooting him a double thumbs-up. "Story time is good. Good way to pass the time. For a second there I was worried we'd have to resort to I-Spy or singing showtunes, and I'm seriously doubt you've got the range for some 'Wicked'."

Dean rolled his eyes heavily, but the smallest ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his lips, making her grin widely in response. "Has anybody ever told you you're an idiot?"

"Yeah, but they were all wrong," she deadpanned.

That one earned her a micro-chuckle, big enough for her to notice but small enough for Dean to maintain plausible deniability lest she do something so drastic as accuse him of having the ability to smile.

"Fine," he grumbled, scratching at his neck beneath the collar of his shirt. "Fine. My brother Sammy went and got himself killed, so I made a deal—"

"A crossroads deal," Lizbeth elaborated, raising her eyebrows pointedly.

Dean rolled his eyes, but made no comment before continuing. "Yeah, a crossroads deal," he affirmed. "Sammy got un-killed, a year later I'm a hellhound's chew toy and my soul gets dragged to the pit."

"Yeesh," Lizbeth said, wincing theatrically. "You only got a year? Man, you are a seriously shit negotiator."

"Well it wasn't exactly a seller's market, was it?" he drawled, a defensive edge intruding into his tone.

"Yeah," Lizbeth said, offering up a bitter laugh. "Yeah, I guess not."

Lizbeth wondered what that must be like, to care about someone so much you were willing to give up the one thing that was completely and utterly your own. And to sentence yourself to unending pain in the process. And she wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing—if it was something she might actually want. Love was one thing. Loyalty was one thing. But throwing yourself into a constant cycle of devotion and grief and pain with no visible exit route—that was another thing entirely. It took a special type of person to sign up for that.

"Where do you think you ended up, anyway?" Dean asked, elbowing her in the side. "After you bit it?"

Lizbeth swallowed heavily, shoving those feelings back down her throat, and shook her head. "No fucking clue," she shrugged. "Like I said earlier, lights out and then back in business. As for where I was...Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, the DMV—"

"Yeah, well I'm pretty sure the last two are the same thing," Dean shot back cheekily.

"So you do have a sense of humor," Lizbeth drawled. "Thank God, I was getting worried." Dean spared her a scathing glance, but his gaze shifted back out the windshield with comment. Lizbeth stole another glance at him out of the corner of her eye. "So you really think your brother's behind this? Isn't it a bit of a vicious cycle if the two of you keep bailing each other out of the big house?"

"Yeah," Dean sighed out. "Sammy's a smart kid, but he's kind of an idiot."

Dean kept his eyes fixed on the road, and Lizbeth studied his profile, trying to gauge his expression. "There's more isn't there?"

"What do you mean?"

Lizbeth pressed her lips together in a thin line and gave him a knowing look. "I mean that you really, really don't want this to be because of your brother, but you're also pretty freaking terrified that it's not him."

He gritted his teeth before he replied. "Why would you go and think something like that?"

"Because," she drew out slowly, "if it's not him, then what the hell is it?"

Leaving his left hand on the wheel, Dean rubbed at his jaw. "We've found ourselves in a bit a situation, haven't we?"

"Afraid so, Sparky," Lizbeth sighed.

Lizbeth removed her feet from the Chevelle's dashboard, drawing her knees up to her chin instead. Trust. It was obviously something neither she nor Dean allowed for lightly. He wasn't telling the whole truth, that was for damn sure, but then again neither was she. Trust was a rare commodity in their business, because trust could make you vulnerable—it opened you up to betrayal. You didn't bestow it on somebody until you were sure of them, and usually the fleeting nature of alliances didn't allow for that degree of certainty. Bobby was the only person she truly trusted. Bobby trusted Dean, and Dean was right when he said that that meant something. And as alone as she was, Lizbeth didn't have much of a choice in the matter. Dean, on the other hand, did.

But for now, Dean didn't need to trust her. All they needed was an understanding.

"So what do you say?" Lizbeth said, punching Dean lightly in the arm. "Am I a temporary member of the Scooby Gang, or what?"

He gave her an appraising look and nodded hesitantly. "Maybe. For now. We've been looking for a Velma."

Lizbeth rolled her eyes and looked out across the road in front of her. "Thanks, Daphne. I appreciate that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you enjoyed the chapter! Comments and kudos are always very much appreciated.


	4. Brothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Family reunions can be hella awkward if you're not actually part of the family. And when they actually try to murder each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: 'Supernatural' isn't mine. Shocking, right? But it's true. If there are any similarities in content or dialogue, it has probably originated with the show.
> 
> Also it's be SOSOSOSO long since I've written for this fic/watched Supernatural, I'm a little concerned about getting everyone in character. I've just started watching season 4 again, so any notes on keeping people in character is welcomed!

The Astoria Hotel, the pride and joy of Pontiac, Illinois. Or, as Lizbeth had decided to refer to it, the Ast-whore-ia Hotel. Pay by the hour, 24 hours a day, no questions asked. A room available at even the latest notice, if you didn't mind that the maid had taken the week off. Great. The illustrious Winchester numero dos was holed up in a low rent cesspool of sexual deviancy and venereal disease that smelled heavily of cat urine, broken dreams, and lowered expectations.

Dean had driven through the night, unwilling to give up the wheel when she offered to take a shift. Perhaps he thought his three months underground were enough rest for a good long while, but the ever-present hesitation lurking behind his eyes told Lizbeth he still didn't trust her with his mission, as simple as it was. His single-mindedness with regards to his brother, while admirable, was annoying as hell. Mostly because left Lizbeth useless, nervously tapping out rhythms to silent songs against the side of her leg.

Also, he refused to relinquish control of the radio. Eight full hours of her life soundtracked by southern rock. Which incited Lizbeth to passive aggressively hum the best hits of the Talking Heads as loudly as her vocal chords could allow. Which resulted in Dean barking loud orders for her to shut up and stop fidgeting so goddamn much. Which led to her protesting loudly because, though 'driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his (or her) cakehole' might be an established rule, the bylaws contained no clause prohibiting shotgun from humming as obnoxiously as they damn well pleased. Humming, after all, could be performed whilst one's cakehole remained shut. Viable loophole. All of which served to wake Bobby from his deep, bourbon-laced slumber and holler at the both them to shut the hell up. Every bit the dysfunctional family road trip she had anticipated.

The dashboard clock had read just past midnight as they finally rolled into the hotel parking lot, gravel crunching under the tires. Lizbeth lay back on the hood of Bobby's Chevelle, heels of her boots perched on the rusted front bumper and jacked wadded up beneath her head. The heat of the engine left the metal warm and comfortable as she stared up at the sky above. It was painted black with the slightest tinge of blue surrounding the small pinpricks of light. The stars looked different than they had before she went under. Partly, no doubt, due to the rotation of the earth and science and blah, blah, blah...but they somehow seemed further away. Fewer and farther between. Faded.

The neon sign of the hotel flickered weakly above her head, that faint buzz clicking in and out with the sound of moths flying into a bug zapper. The light glowing down on the car stained the skin of her hands a red-orange as she picked the remaining dirt and dried blood from under her fingernails. Bobby leaned against the car next to her, waiting for Winchester numero uno to finish up with the clerk inside. It took some effort for her to studiously ignore the lewd glances she received from a particular portion of the clientele—they weren't what worried her. What worried her was the curmudgeon-y old idiot standing next to her. Lizbeth's knee bounced up and down nervously as she kept stealing sidelong glances in his direction. Glances which he obviously noticed, but refused to acknowledge.

Sighing heavily, she pushed herself up and leaned forwards, wrapping her arms around her legs and perching her chin on her knees. "So are we going to talk about it?" she asked in a timid whisper.

Bobby shifted at the sound of her voice, but his eyes stayed angled towards the ground. "Talk about what?" he asked gruffly.

"About the reason you haven't been able to look at me for more than ten seconds at a time," she replied bluntly. "And about the fact that you've started drinking again."

He let out a loud harrumph, his shoulders hunching further forwards as he exhaled. "You'll have to remind me when I stopped drinking in the first damn place."

"There's drinking and then there's drinking," she said, nudging him in the side. "I want to know when you started in on the second, italicized version of the word. When your house started looking like a frat house after a kegger."

He still didn't look at her, instead staring at a muddy puddle on the ground before him. "It's been a tough coupla years, Lizzie. A lot's happened since you went under."

"That's not much of an answer," Lizbeth prodded.

"Yeah, well it's the only one you're gonna get," he growled under his breath. "I don't know where the hell it is you idjits got the idea that you gotta take care of me. Y'all need to mind your own damn business. I don't need any fixin'."

Lizbeth leaned further forwards, trying to get a look at Bobby's face. Most was shadowed under that goddamn baseball cap he always wore, and the rest was streaked with the red light radiating from the sign. But that twitch of the jaw was indication enough. He was trying his hardest to hide himself from her, but she knew exactly what expression he was wearing under that hat. And it seriously pissed her off.

"Goddammit, Bobby," she groaned, rubbing at her forehead to ward off the looming headache. "Just stop it, okay? Just don't even go there."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"That look," she said, waving a finger in his face. "I don't want to see that look on your face."

"It's just my face," he mumbled back. "I ain't really got a lot of faces."

"Yeah, that's kind of my point," she shot back bitterly, poking him hard in the shoulder. "What I'm seeing is your 'I deserve all of this self-inflicted emotional torture' face. It's your guilty face. And you don't have a damn thing to feel guilty about."

A deep, rumbling laugh echoed from Bobby's throat like a slow-moving roll of thunder, soft but filled with warning. Dark and mournful. More than anything else she has experienced that day, that sound gave Lizbeth chills. "I told ya not to worry so much," Bobby murmured. "I told ya it was all in your head. And then an hour later I'm gettin' a phone call from Officer Friendly tellin' me that you're dead. There's a pretty straight line between points A and B."

Lizbeth's heart seized in her chest. Shit. Guilt was like an infectious disease. Bobby felt guilty about the circumstances surrounding her dead. She felt guilty for being the object of Bobby's guilt. The whole thing was one big goddamn vicious cycle—the snake eating its own tail. Ouroboros. It consumed them until they began to consume themselves. And then what was left? A hollow shell with a drinking problem and a list of past mistakes. Well, fuck that. This cycle was ending now.

Lizbeth hopped off the hood of Bobby's Chevelle, her fingers twisting into the fabric of her flannel over-shirt and cutting off the circulation to the fingertips. They began to turn purple, the light tingle slowly turning into a harsh sting. Hold it that way too long, cut off the oxygen, part of the body dies. Then comes the gangrene, and you're left slowly rotting. Relationships worked the same way. Cut off the communication—the words, the air, the oxygen—and bit by bit the relationship disintegrates. Releasing the fabric, Lizbeth freed her fingertips and stepped in front of Bobby. She squared her shoulders and did her level best to summon up an intimidating aura, which might have actually worked if he bothered to look at her. She was sick of people actively not looking at her, avoiding eye contact like she was some sort of inconvenience or...complication.

"What the hell were you supposed to do, Bobby?" she demanded, her voice heavy with weariness. "Were you supposed to teleport from South Dakota to Vermont? That technology is at least ten years out. So until people are beaming themselves up to the U.S.S. Enterprise, you have nothing to feel guilty about. So enough with the masochism, okay? I'm alive. So let's talk. Because if I have to see another silent guy with that broody expression on his face, I am going to start hitting people. I don't know why I'm back topside, but I'm pretty sure it's not so I can attend my own wake."

He finally looked up at her, but his expression was inscrutable. He opened his mouth slightly, presumably to give her some insight into his well-concealed man-feelings, but the moment was interrupted by a loud bang and steady stream of curses. Lizbeth twisted around to see Dean stalking out of the lobby, his face contorted with anger. An expression she was becoming quickly familiar with. Beyond him the door to the hotel swung shut, but not before Lizbeth was afforded a glimpse of the front desk. Behind it sat a smug, nerdy looking teenager whose face glowed with satisfaction. She allowed herself a small smile. The kid was clearly enjoying his little power kick.

"The goddamn kid wouldn't give me the room number," Dean growled, kicking at an errant beer can that lay in his path. "Freaking 'client confidentiality'. I swear to God, if he smiles at me one more time, I'm gonna have to spread the pain."

"Seriously?" Lizbeth snorted, raising her eyebrows at him. "Ghosts, demons, and werewolves are another day at the office for you people, but put you in the room with one of the cast of Dawson's Creek and you fold?"

He came to a stop in front of her and gave her the strangest look—like she had grown a second head. "Dawson's Creek? Really?"

"What?" she demanded, defensively folding her arms across her chest. "Is that reference not relevant anymore? I'm sorry, but being dead has kind of gotten in the way of keeping up with pop culture."

"Even being dead isn't an excuse for making that reference," he replied dryly. "Under no circumstances should anybody ever make that reference."

"You more of a The O.C. guy?" she demanded, the corners of her lips quirking up into a wicked smile. "Wait, no—Gilmore Girls. You're definitely a Gilmore Girls guy—I can tell."

"Can you two idjits shut up an' focus on the problem," Bobby interrupted, finally pushing off the hood of the car himself. "Sam's in that building an' I'd rather not knock on every single door tryin' to find him."

Dean sighed heavily and scratched absently at his forehead. He was on his last nerve, and Lizbeth honestly couldn't blame him. The only thing between him and his brother was a pimply-faced, sadistic teenager. The brooding expression to which she had become accustomed was marred by genuine sorrow. "I think he'd start talking if a couple of twenties made their way into his pocket," he mumbled. "But I haven't exactly had the chance to drop by the bank."

Lizbeth pursed her lips, nodding absently to herself. The solution was easy enough. "Keep your money," she declared. "Other options are available, and I've got something that'll work a whole hell of a lot better than money."

"Oh, yeah?" Dean groused. "And what would that be exactly?"

Lizbeth spared him a pitying glance before shrugging out of her flannel over-shirt. "Boobs," she elaborated, gesturing in the general direction of her chest. "I'm talking about boobs, the kryptonite of the horny male teenager. Or male adult. Assuming he's straight or bisexual, of course."

With the arms tied around her waist, the hem of the overshirt brushed against the end of her jean skirt, perspective making it look even shorter. She yanked her hair out of its ponytail and shook it out, letting it cascade down on her shoulders, raking her fingers through the little knots and tangles. And lastly, the pièce de résistance. Lizbeth adjusted her bra, pushing her admittedly limited cleavage a little further up while she pulled the neckline of her tanktop lower. Glancing up at Dean, she noticed his eyes sliding down her neck and continuing below. Which, while technically the point of her transformation, was not in any way productive. She snapped her fingers in front of his face, making him start with surprise. "Eyes front, soldier," she said, pointing at her own eyes. "This is purely professional sluttiness."

Dean exhaled sharply, something like an awkward chuckle, his lips quirking upwards into a stiff smile. Most likely he hoped that smile was enough to distract from the vague aura of alarm lurking behind his eyes. His gaze flickered down to her chest for another moment before overcorrecting to above her head. Clearing his throat uncomfortably, the smile fell from his face as he looked to Bobby, suddenly uncertain of his position standing between the two of them. Bobby met his gaze with the same surly, steely eyed expression he afforded anything from puppy parades to the odd raging sewer monster.

Lizbeth rolled her eyes heavily. Why were guys so quick to put women in the context of other men? Between blinks she had, in Dean's mind, gone from random chick to Bobby's possible surrogate daughter, and only then was checking out her cleavage such a questionable thing. "God, don't not stare at my rack just for Bobby's sake," she muttered, earning herself another look of alarm. Eyes falling shut, Lizbeth let out a beleaguered sigh, purging herself of frustration. "Jesus—okay, what's the name the room is registered under?"

Dean opened his mouth and shut it, thrown by the shift of topic. "It's, uh, Wedge Antilles."

"Really?" Lizbeth snorted. "When you book the room is it registered to a Mr. Luke Skywalker?" Dean's mouth opened slightly in surprise, making her roll her eyes in response. "Yes, I've seen Star Wars. You and your brother are quite the masters of disguise."

Spinning on her heel, Lizbeth marched towards the lobby, gravel crunching underfoot as Bobby and Dean trailed after her. She flipped her hair over her shoulders, getting into character before violently wrenching open the front door. The inside of the Astoria Hotel was much what she had expected. Dim and dank, a lone bulb hung from the ceiling on a wire swinging slowly back and forth while a window airconditioning unit impotently spewed air no less humid and warm than that outside. Weeks of dust had taken up residence on every surface in visible sight, and her strained ears detected a distinctly mouse-like squeak. Though that might be the product of rusty door hinges. Or any number of overly rusted objects that lay about.

Dean's oh-so formidable opponent was situated behind the counter, his feet propped up on the desk, studying a comic book through thick-lensed glasses that sat beneath a mop of unruly dark hair. In his late teens, he looked to be about Dean's height, but gangly and stretched out like the product of a Willy Wonka Factory accident. Lizbeth walked up to the counter unnoticed, and tapped the bell. The reaction was immediate. Flailing, he yanked his feet down from the counter, dropping the comic book almost tipping the chair over in the process, before settling into a decidedly nonchalant pose. "H—hello," he said. "Welcome to the Astoria Hotel."

Lizbeth bit back the laugh threatening to spill from her lips and pretended not to notice the display, instead letting an easy, flirty smile slip onto her face. She stepped forwards, leaning over the desk and narrowing her eyes at his name tag. "Hi there....Bruce," she said, her voice jumping to a more cheerful octave as she smiled down at him. "I'm Angie. How are you doing?"

"F—fine," he stuttered out, swallowing heavily. "The night shift kind of sucks, but overall—"

"That's great," she interrupted, making sure that smile stayed firmly planted on her face. "Hey, listen—"

Her words were cut off as the door behind her squeaked loudly, and Lizbeth glanced over her shoulder to see Bobby and Dean walking through. They wore matching somber, serious expressions. Great. The dark cloud descends. When she turned back to 'Bruce', he was already eyeing them with a hefty dose of suspicion.

The neckline of Lizbeth's shirt tugged a little lower as she leaned further over the counter. "Hey, Bruce," she whispered conspiratorially, dragging his attention back to her. "I was wondering if you could do me a favor. I need a little help."

"Yeah!" the kid declared, nodding enthusiastically. "Yeah, sure, what do you need? A room? I can book you one."

"No, it's not that," Lizbeth replied, letting a pained wince contort her face. "You see....it's my ex. We broke up about a week ago....he stole a lot of stuff from my apartment—jewelry, credit cards, all sorts of stuff. My dad, my brother, and I—" she jerked his head over her shoulder at the two idiots standing behind her "—we've driven all the way from Ohio to find him. We know he's staying here...the asshole used my credit card to book the room. If you could tell me what room he's staying in, you would really be saving me." She reached forward and covered his hand with hers, making him twitch slightly. "You have no idea how much I would appreciate it."

"S—sure," he stammered. "Absolutely."

"He's staying under the name Wedge Antilles," Lizbeth said, sighing audibly with relief. "You're saving my life here, Bruce. Thank you so much."

Bruce's face split into a flustered grin and he flushed pink to the tips of his ears. He pulled towards him a keyboard that appeared ancient even to her to her obsolete eye for technology and began typing frantically. A few key clacks and clicks of the mouse later, and he looked up from that old Dell monitor. "He's registered to room 207. I could call up to see if he's there now."

"Oh, that won't be necessary," Lizbeth smiled, offering him a wink. "I think we'd like to pay a surprise visit."

"Yeah," he said, bobbing his head. "Yeah, sure."

Lizbeth widened her eyes, all earnestness. "Thank you so much, Bruce. Really."

"Any time," he grinned back.

As she turned from the desk, that friendly smile morphed itself into a victorious smirk. She strode past Dean, giving him a hard pat on the shoulder as she proceeded towards the stairs. The look she received in response conveyed more annoyance than gratitude, not that she had expected any different. "Room 207," she declared as the three of them made their way into the stairwell and out of the clerk's earshot. "Wasn't that hard. Maybe your interrogation techniques could do with a bit of practice."

"Yeah, well forgive me if I don't have that particular skillset," Dean grumbled.

Lizbeth smiled fully, removing her flannel shirt from around her waist and pulling it back over her shoulders. "You work with what you got," she sighed. "But for the record, you've got nothing to worry about. You've got good boobs too. It was just the wrong context for them to be useful—they'll get their moment to shine."

"Wow, thanks," Dean deadpanned, his face impassive. "You're really putting me at ease, Red."

"Would the two've you shut the hell up and climb the goddamn stairs?" Bobby growled from behind them.

"Oh, Bobby, there's no need to be jealous," Lizbeth called over her shoulder. "You've got good boobs too. The years have treated them really well. Not too saggy. They've still got some good years in them."

"Shut your goddamn mouth."

Smirking at the angry mutterings being issued from behind her, Lizbeth continued to climb the stairs. Hearing Bobby swear colorfully at some idiotic bullshit she had spouted made her feel more home than else she had yet to encounter. It called up fond memories of his grumpy face as she restocked the fridge with fiber-heavy vegetables and swapped out the white bread for whole grain. Small moments bathed in the warm light of nostalgia. They felt far away and close all at once. As much as he looked that same, Bobby was different. She was different. And her heart broke a little because as it stood she couldn't see a way back to it. She had swum the River Styx, and on the other side nothing looked the same.

The three of them finally made their way up the stairs and opened the door to the correct floor. What lay on the other side made Lizbeth cringe. The seediness of the 'hotel' promised via both its exterior and lobby was fully realized by the interior. More than that, the designer seemed to have doubled down with the unseemly decor. The ceilings had been painted a garish red to match the overly plush shag carpet while the walls were covered in a cheap-looking wood paneling. Top that off with the fact that the room numbers were ensconced in little hearts, and Lizbeth was fairly certain she had been transported back in time to some sort of 1970s swingers club.

Lizbeth let out a low whistle as they made their way to the right door. "This is the setting of all my sexual nightmares."

Ignoring her, Dean took a single, definitive step towards the door, shooting them one more glance over the shoulder that clearly read 'here goes nothing'. With some hesitation, he raised his hand and banged on the door with the flat of his fist. Lizbeth would have watched with bated breath if given the opportunity, but the door swung open almost instantaneously.

In the doorway stood a pretty, petite brunette an inch or two shorter than Lizbeth, clad only in a grey wifebeater tee and a pair of underwear. Her wide brown eyes glanced between the three of them, the expression on her face reading as a mixture of expectation and incomprehension. "So where is it?" she demanded aggressively.

Lizbeth blinked in confusion and folded and stole a glance at Dean and Bobby, both of whom appeared equally bemused. "Where's what?" Dean asked casually.

The girl scoffed and raised her eyebrows at them in disbelief. "The pizza?" she drawled out sarcastically. "The one that takes two guys and some chick to deliver?"

"This feels like the outtakes to a crappy porno," Lizbeth muttered under her breath. "Bring on the groovy tunes."

"Shut up, Lizzie," Dean muttered out of the corner of his mouth before turning back to the girl. "I think we've got the wrong room."

The three of them were about to turn away and continue down the hall, but all of a sudden another figure appeared in the doorframe. For a moment Lizbeth thought that she had come face-to-face with Sasquatch—scratch that one off her bucket list—but as soon as the guy caught sight of them in the hallway, he came to an abrupt stop. Taking one small step towards them, he moved into the light and revealed not Bigfoot but an exceptionally tall, well-built guy with shaggy brown hair and brown eyes. Given his sudden inability to form coherent sentences, Lizbeth was left with one conclusion. Not much in the way of family resemblances beyond the cleft chin—forehead wider, lips thinner, nose sharper and more flared at the nostrils, chin more pronounced—but the expressions they wore echoed each other. That in itself spoke volumes.

An almost imperceptible, but warm smile slid across Dean's face. The lines of concern seemed to retreat lifting years from his age, and for the first time since Lizbeth had met him he looked unburdened. "Heya, Sammy."

Dean brushed past the girl and took slow, measured steps towards the guy—Sammy, his brother. By all indications they were headed straight for a warm, heartfelt man-hug.

The tide swiftly turned with the sound of scraping metal. Sammy lunged forward and shoved Dean into the wall, short dagger in hand with the blade poised to drive itself into Dean's ear. The girl let out a shriek, and Dean managed to grab hold of Sammy's wrist, deflecting the blade till it hit the wall with a dull thump. Immediately, she and Bobby surged forwards. Bobby looped one arm under his arm and the other around his neck, holding him back, away from Dean. Lizbeth stood between the two of them, hands held out to erect some form of invisible barrier. But the two of them didn't even seem to see her, their gaze locked so solidly an earthquake likely couldn't shake it.

"Who are you?!" the guy shouted.

Dean stood rooted in place, staring incredulously as his brother struggled against Bobby's grip. "What?!" he shouted, disbelief and judgement coloring his tone. "Like you didn't do this?!"

"Do what?!"

Lizbeth swore loudly and moved towards Sammy, dodging the flailing knife and snatching at his wrist. She twisted that arm behind his back before getting a grip on his thumb. One sharp rotation and he was forced to drop the knife. As soon as it hit the ground, Lizbeth swept it up and resumed her position between the two brothers. "Everyone needs to calm the hell down!" she shouted, pointing at Sammy with the knife.

"Sam," Bobby urged, still struggling against the behemoth of a human being. "Sam, it's him! I've been through all this before, it's really him!"

The guy—Sam—stopped fighting and became still. His breaths were coming out in heavy pants as he stared at Dean, disbelief etched into every line of his face. Lizbeth's eyes flicked to Dean, and her stomach clenched at the expression. Hurt, wistful, ecstatic, relieved. More emotions flitted across his face in that moment than she had seen in the past fourteen hours. Slowly, she dropped her arms and stepped back, out of their way. Sam seemed to be in a state of shock. He exhaled sharply and shook his head. "B—but—"

"Yeah, I know," Dean sighed out, smirking lightly. "I look fantastic."

The breath that followed seemed to last a lifetime, but at its conclusion Sam lunged forwards again, this time to wrap Dean in a solid embrace. When they finally broke apart, they stared at each other a moment, exchanging stoic nods. Big strong men being manly and emotionally constipated. A crooked smile made its way to Lizbeth's face as she rolled her eyes. How this reunion managed to be so cathartic and yet remain so restrained was a miracle.

Ultimately the moment was broken by a light female cough that did not belong to Lizbeth. All heads turned to the door to find the semi-dressed brunette was still present, highly confused, and most likely a little bit cold. "So are you two like....together?" she asked, pointing between Sam and Dean.

"W—what?" Sam stuttered, furrowing his eyebrows. "N—no. No. He's my brother."

"O—oh, I got it, I guess," she mumbled, nodding along with her words. "Look, I should probably go."

"Yeah," Sam agreed a little too quickly. "Yeah, that's probably a good idea."

The five of them just stood there for a while, just staring at each other. Like five awkward silences were occupying the same space and time, compounding upon each other until the level of discomfort couldn't be held by the four walls of the room. It was times like this that Lizbeth always felt the need to fill the conversational void. "Family reunions, am I right?" she drawled out, shoving her hands in her pockets and rocking back and forth on her heels anxiously. "People always wind up trying to kill each other."

Sam and the girl looked over at her, the words 'who the fuck are you' spelled clearly on their faces. Yeah, that definitely didn't help the situation.

For Lizbeth, the next few minutes played out like a scene from a crappy reality TV show. Her situation was entirely ridiculous. She sat in the corner of the room, waiting for everyone else to get their shit together, her eyes raking over the surroundings. All the reject furnishings of Studio 54 had seemingly been shoved into a single hotel room. The walls were covered in a tiger-print wallpaper, and because animal pelts apparently didn't fill the quota of seductive decor, all the lights had been covered with red shades that cast a 'sensual' glow. That, in combination with the black lacquered furniture and the carpet, turned the place into a veritable 1970s shag shack. The fact that there was a girl wandering around, searching for her clothes while Dean stared at her ass with no degree of subtlety was just the cherry on top. As she was finally being ushered out the door, Lizbeth gave her a small wave goodbye, earning her one of the more terrifying death-glares of her lifetime.

"So call me!" the brunette chirped, lingering by the door.

"Yeah, yeah," Sam said, leaning on the doorframe. "Sure thing, Kathy."

The girl blinked, her smile faltering. "It's Krissy."

The snort that forced its way out of Lizbeth nose wasn't all that well concealed. The irony of the girl's name overshadowing for a moment Sam's asshole-ish behavior. Of course her name was Krissy—it sounded like the name of the busty coed who gets killed at the beginning of horror movies because she's too stupid not to go into the creepy dark basement. Or maybe she was being overly judgemental.

Then again, she was sitting in a room that had a painting of a tiger hanging from a wall covered in tiger print. Some scenarios invite disapproval.

"Right," Sam muttered, bobbing his head dismissively. The girl pressed her lips together in a wan smile and ducked backwards, moving away from the door. Sam closed the door behind her and strode back to the velvet-covered couch. He had the decency to look mildly ashamed of himself and, for some reason, actively avoided his brother's gaze.

Dean leaned against the dresser, arms folded across his chest and jaw clenched like he was ready to pass judgement. "So tell me," he said gruffly, all that precious levity leaving his voice. "What did it cost?"

Sam, clearly trying to avoid the looming conversation, let out a light laugh. "The girl?" he asked through a boyish grin. "I don't pay, Dean."

"That's not funny, Sam," Dean shot back, unfazed by the sarcasm. "To bring me back. What did it cost? Was it your soul or something worse?"

"You think I made a deal?" Sam demanded.

"That's exactly what we think," Bobby said, leveling Sam with a serious stare.

"For the record, that's not what I think," Lizbeth said from her corner, raising her hand.

Sam gave a start, like he had forgotten her presence entirely. Not a difficult feat given the rather dramatic circumstances. He twisted in his seat to look at her. As soon as he fully faced her, a shadow passed behind his eyes. His eyes narrowed into a look of appraisal, studying her face carefully. Lizbeth's eyebrows drew together and she straightened, bringing herself to her full height under his scrutiny. "Who the hell are you?" he asked, an edge of perturbation mixing in with the confusion.

Dean pushed himself off the wall and took a few steps forward. "She's not important right now," he said, waving his hand absently.

"Whoa, hey—I have feelings!" Lizbeth scoffed, stepping forward to emerge from her dark corner. "And believe it or not I am equally invested in the fallout of this little situation."

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned in frustration. "Fine, Li—Beth. We'll get to you soon enough. But for now can you shut your massive pie-hole for five minutes while I talk to my brother?" Lizbeth threw up her hands in submission and Dean gave a single nod of thanks. He turned back to face Sam, accusation written all over his face.

Sam opened and closed his mouth a few times, searching for the right words. "Look, Dean, I didn't make a deal."

Dean glowered back, unaffected by the denial. "Don't lie to me."

Sam exhaled sharply and stared back at Dean evenly. "I'm not lying."

"So, what now?" Dean barreled on, advancing on Sam. "I'm off the hook and you're on, is that it? You're some demon's bitch-boy? I didn't want to be saved like this."

Something in Sam's cool veneer snapped and he threw himself to his feet. "Look, Dean," he growled, "I wish I had done it, alright?"

Lizbeth bit her lip and averted her gaze, instead opting to focus on the upsetting tiger portrait that hung on the far wall. She couldn't help but feel like she was intruding on a very personal moment. She was never one for voyeurism, particularly of the emotional variety. Now she had a front-row seat to what was possibly the most angsty, emotionally charged reunion of all time. She wasn't family, meaning she belonged there about as much as Krissy did. So she stayed out of the way—far out of the way.

Suddenly, Dean grabbed Sam by the collar and yanked him forward angrily. "There's only one way this could have gone down. Tell the truth!"

"I tried everything, Dean, that's the truth!" Sam shouted, shoving Dean away from him. "I tried opening the Devil's Gate—hell, I tried to bargain, Dean, but no demon would deal, alright! You were rotting in hell for months—for months—and I couldn't stop it! So I'm sorry it wasn't me, alright? Dean, I'm sorry."

Dean exhaled sharply and nodded, letting the tension leave his shoulders and seemingly satisfied with the answer. "It's okay, Sammy. You don't have to apologize, I believe you."

"Don't get me wrong," Bobby interjected in a carefully moderated tone, "I'm glad that Sam's soul remains intact. But it does raise a sticky question."

Lizbeth stood up and walked towards the rest of them, rubbing the back of her neck anxiously. "What the hell yanked us out in the first place?" she murmured, looking between them. "I guess we're back to square one, because fuck knows all the signs point to something big, something bad, and something that I sure as hell have never heard of before." She scanned the room and her eyes fell on a mini-fridge. She immediately moved towards it and threw the door open, revealing an icy six-pack of beer. "Newcastle, nice," she muttered under her breath. She grabbed four bottles, tossing one to Bobby, Dean, and Sam, who was still eyeing her questioningly.

"Okay," Sam said, narrowing his eyes at her, "no offense or anything, but who the hell are you? And why are you here?"

Lizbeth silently moved towards the dresser, positioning her bottle so the edge of the cap hooked over the edge. With one swift movement, she slammed her hand down hard on the neck of the bottle so the cap popped off easily and fell to the floor, embedding itself in the shag carpet. She took a long swig from the beer, savoring the sensation of the cold and the bubbles sliding down her throat before looking Sam up and down with an appraising eye.

"My name's Lizbeth Oswald," she said, extending a hand to him which he hesitantly took. "You can call me Beth. I'm member number two of the illustrious Club Dead."

Sam exhaled sharply and cocked his head to the side, letting go of her hand and taking a step back. "Club Dead?"

"Yeah," Lizbeth nodded, taking another long sip from the beer. "It's like Club Med, but I replaced the M with a—"

"No, I understand the pun," Sam interrupted, looking slightly flustered. "I mean, what do you mean you were dead?"

Lizbeth shrugged and collapsed on the couch, soon to be joined by Bobby. "I was dead, and then I was alive again," she replied, propping her feet up on the coffee table. "Not much else I can tell you other than the thing that whatever put me back together has the same M.O. as whatever dragged your brother's sorry ass back to the land of the living."

"Hey," Dean growled in warning, shoving her feet to the side so he could sit on the coffee table. "Watch it."

"Wait a second," Sam said, looking between everybody, "so why did you think I made a deal if she's back too? I don't even know her, why would I deal for her?"

Dean snorted loudly. "That's real nice, Sam."

"I—I didn't mean it like that!" he spluttered, looking at her with those wide, brown, puppy-dog eyes of his. "I just meant—"

"Dude, calm yourself," Lizbeth sighed, taking another sip of her beer. "Do you know a guy named Frank Oswald? He's about six foot, long face, pointed nose...probably a beard, definitely some grey hair by now. Met anybody like that recently?"

"Wha—no," Sam said, shaking his head. "Not in the past few months."

"There goes the crossroads deal theory for my end," she said, arching an eyebrow at Dean and Bobby. "And anyways, there's no way a crossroads demon has that kind of juice. It's not a prison break—you can't bust out with a spoon, a poster of Raquel Welch, and a healthy helping of moxie."

A reluctant chuckle escaped Dean's lips, but any hint of mirth soon retreated into the lines of his face as he fixed his brother with a stare, albeit a marginally less serious one. "So what are you doing around here if you weren't digging around for my grave?"

Sam exhaled sharply and glanced fleetingly at Lizbeth, rolling the cold beer bottle between his hands nervously before continuing. "Well, as soon as I figured out I couldn't save you I—uh—I started hunting down Lillith, trying to get some payback."

Lizbeth, who had been mid-swallow, suddenly lurched forwards, letting out a spluttering cough in an inelegant spit-take. "Lillith?" she demanded, coughing in an effort to to expel all beer from her lungs. "Lillith as in 'the first demon'-Lillith? You went after her alone—are you freaking suicidal?"

"You've met Lillith?" he asked.

Lizbeth let out a disbelieving laugh and shook her head. "Hell, no, I've never met Lillith!" she declared. "But I sure as hell have read enough about her to know that she is not to be fucked with. Going after Lillith with back-up, a couple of RPGs and maybe a tank would be inadvisable. Going after her alone?"

"Yeah," Bobby barked from his seat next to her. "Who do you think you are, your old man?"

Sam's head dropped shamefully, and a shroud of guilt clouded his eyes. "Ah—yeah, I'm sorry Bobby I should have called—I was pretty messed up."

Lizbeth tuned out his apology as she sank further into the sofa cushions only to feel something digging into her back. She reached behind her and felt around in the crevasse between velvety cushions until her fingers closed around a slippery, satiny fabric. Arching her back, she yanked the foreign object out from under her only to find herself holding a lacy pink bra covered with a frankly impractical number of ribbons. Rolling her eyes, she tossed it over to Dean, who snatched it easily out of the air. He dangled it in front of his brother, his lips twisting into an unreasonably gleeful smirk.

"Oh, yeah, Sammy," he drawled, letting it swing back and forth like he was attempting some sort of lewd hypnotism. "I feel your pain."

"Hey, what size is that?" Lizbeth said, leaning forwards to grab at the bra and reading the label. "Nice one, Sammy," she grinned. "You bagged a C-cup."

Sam squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and shook his head before opening them again. "Anyways," he drawled out, dismissing her child-like antics, "I was checking these demons out of Tennessee, and then out of nowhere they took a hard left and booked up here."

"When?" she and Dean asked simultaneously.

"Yesterday morning," he replied, looking between the two of them curiously. "I'm pretty sure some of them split off, though."

She held the cold bottle in her hand against her forehead, the exhaustion of the day hitting her like a freight train. "And you know what else," she muttered, throwing her head back and downing the remainder of her beer before slamming it down on the coffee table in front of her. "I'll bet you dollars to donuts that splinter group headed to Kansas. Am I right, or am I right?"

"Yeah," Sam said, looking at her curiously. "How did you know that?"

"Because that's where I popped up. A few dozen miles outside Topeka."

"So do we think those demons showed up because of you two?" Bobby asked, the wrinkles of his face becoming more pronounced as he sank deeper into thought.

Lizbeth ran her hands down her face in frustration. "Well, shit."

To call this one hell of a day would be an understatement of epic proportions. Wake up in a coffin, almost die of dehydration, almost die from projectile shards of glass, and now she was being stalked by demons. Fan-fucking-tastic. From the looks of things, she had been brought to be killed all over again. Whoever was pulling the strings really needed to make up their fucking minds, or soon enough she would be cutting those strings. She refused to be a puppet, and she was tired of having forces unseen and unknown make her dance like a shotgun was aimed at her feet.

"Wait, why would the demons be here for you?" Sam asked, dragging Lizbeth out of the self-pity portion of her evening.

"Well I don't know," Dean snapped. "Some badass demon drags me out and now this? It's gotta be connected somehow."

"Yeah," Bobby whispered, suddenly getting a suspicious look about him. "How are ya feelin' anyway?"

And now they had reached the grand speculation portion of the evening—all scheduled programming was right on track. Tonight's big question? If anything else had hitched a ride along with them. Lizbeth snatched up her now empty beer bottle and began fiddling with the label as she always did when nerves crept in. The condensation had softened the glue, so she was able to pull it off in long, satisfying strips. Dean, on the other hand, simply shrugged his shoulders and cocked his head to the side in consideration.

"I'm feeling a bit hungry," he muttered.

"No, I mean do you feel like yourself," Bobby elaborated, looking at him pointedly. "Anything strange or different?"

"Well I don't know about Dean," Lizbeth replied in a loud, sarcastic tone, "but I have the sudden and uncontrollable urge to eat human flesh." She let out a groan and rubbed at her forehead, feeling that headache starting up again. "Bobby, we've done all the tests. Hell, I've done them twice. I'm me. I look like me, I feel like me, and as far as I can tell I haven't weirded you out at all—at least not more than I usually do—did."

"Yeah, I'm on board with Red over there," Dean said gesturing in her direction. "How many times do I have to prove I'm me?"

"Yeah, well listen," Bobby growled back, his frustration mounting. "There's no demon that's gonna let you go out of the goodness of their hearts. They've got to have somethin' nasty planned."

"Okay, now hold on a second," Lizbeth said, holding up a hand for silence. "Why are we automatically assuming demon? I've read my dad's journal cover to cover, I've read damn near every book on demons that you have in that hole of a library, Bobby. I have never come across anything like this before. Maybe it's something different entirely. Maybe it's something new. Maybe the demons don't know what's going on either and they're trying to check out the new player in town. If we only look at the demonic aspect, jumping to conclusions, we might be completely missing out on the answer. I'm not saying this to make myself feel better about the situation—it might end up being something even worse. I'm just saying that we need to consider all options here."

"Look, she's right," Sam interjected finally. "We don't know what they're planning or even who 'they' is. We've got a pile of questions and no shovel."

"Okay, then," Lizbeth said with a definitive nod. "Let's go get a shovel."

"I know a psychic a few hours from here," Bobby said quietly. "Somethin' this big, maybe she's heard the other side talkin'."

"Hell yeah," Dean agreed, nodding enthusiastically. "It's worth a shot."

"Great, let's get out of here," she said, throwing herself to her feet and brushing off her skirt. She spared the room one last glance, her nose wrinkling in distaste. "I think that couch just gave me Chlamydia."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, there's the chapter! Comments and kudos are welcomed (and maybe even encouraged a little bit.....)!
> 
> And for the younger kids who might not know, the 'you can't bust out with a spoon, a poster of Raquel Welch, and a healthy helping of moxie' is a reference to one of my favorite films, The Shawshank Redemption. It's a classic and everyone should see it.


	5. Seen and Unforeseen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the gang visits a psychic and generally inconveniences people in fairly epic ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: 'Supernatural' isn't mine. Shocking, right? But it's true. If there are any similarities in content or dialogue, it has probably originated with the show.
> 
> I'm in the middle of moving, etc so this chapter could probably be better but I'm impatient so here we go! I'll probably edit again and I'm really just..ugh. But I'm impatient so here we go!

Her shoes were long forgotten. She had pulled them from her feet miles before, ridding herself of their confines in favor of the feeling of grass underneath her feet. The blades were cool against her calloused skin, crunching slightly with each step she took. Stalks of grass tickling her feet and poking between her bare toes—for some reason it felt like liberty. Pure, unadulterated freedom. She almost wanted to dance, to throw her arms out wide and spin in a circle as the wind whipped through her red hair and the white dress billowed around her.

Lizbeth didn't know how long she had been walking. Hours at least, but no hint exhaustion gnawed at her. The upward slope of the hill was inviting, calling her to discover the mysteries it overlooked. As she came to the top, she found herself not staring at rolling fields of grass, but a steep cliff face. A straight drop to pointed, craggy rocks. The waves hit the stone violently, frothing with harsh white foam as the crashing sound met her ears. Air laced with salt spray buffeted up the rock face, filling her lungs with the scent of the sea.

The waves below crashed like a lullaby, rough and soothing all at once. Slowly, Lizbeth lowered herself to the ground, sitting on the cliff's edge with her feet dangling over the side. She swung them back and forth like a child as the gusts of wind rocketed up the stone bluff. It sent the hem of her clean white dress fluttering in the breeze, and she smiled. Her fingers curled into the grass, relishing the feeling of earth against her skin. To her right, though, a small piece of white interrupted the landscape of green.

A lone dandelion had cropped up on the cliff. How the seed that birthed it had been able to settle in such an empty place, she didn't know. But it felt as if that dandelion belonged to her. She plucked the head of tufted white from its stem and held it over the cliff. A gust of wind hit the woolly sphere, breaking it to pieces. The seeds were snatched up, dancing before her face a moment before being carried off into the distance. Smiling to herself, Lizbeth dropped the green stem over the edge and into the water below.

Her hand stayed lifted before her face, fingers splayed out so the sunlight seeped between them. Soft and warm where the wind was biting and cold. And then the strangest of things happened. A Monarch butterfly had somehow combatted the winds to land on her index finger, bright orange like it had been sent by the sun itself. A small feeling of joy leapt in the pit of her stomach. Lizbeth smiled widely and brought it closer to her face. The butterfly opened and closed its wings, showing her every line and wrinkle. The sun lit up the colors, turning it into a glowing mosaic.

The butterfly took off once more, leaving her to the winds and the waves, but as it flew one of its wings grazed her cheek. Soft and delicate though the creature seemed, that caress left a sharp sting. Lizbeth brought her hand to her face, pressing her fingers against her cheek. They came back stained an angry red. Blood. A thin cut of about two inches marred her face, running from nose to ear.

Frowning to herself, Lizbeth looked back down at her hand. Those few stray drops of blood were not what she found. Both hands were bathed to the elbow in red. The wind whispered that it was her own. Her pulse spiked and her breath went ragged. "No," she whispered to herself. "No, no, no, no." In a frenzy she tried to wipe the blood away, first on the grass beneath her and then on the pristine white of her dress. But she couldn't. It had worked its way under her nails. A dry sob wracked her body and she spat on her hands to wash it away, but her mouth was dry, years since her last sip of water.

A butterfly gently landed on the grass before her, and she froze. It was followed by another. And another. And another. One by one they surrounded her, turning the field into a warm orange rather than a soft green. Her breath stilled as they formed a carpet surrounding her. Slowly, Lizbeth stood to her feet, a small point of red and white in a sea of orange.

Suddenly, in one fluid movement, the butterflies took off. They circled around her, the collective beat of their wings summoning a cyclone with her at its vortex. They swirled around her, sucking the air from around her and emptying her lungs. Each brush of a wing left a small nick behind until her skin was littered with them. Death by a thousand cuts. Lizbeth dropped to her knees, using her arms to protect her face.

A searing heat engulfed her. She opened her eyes to find herself surrounded not by butterflies, but by flames.

Slowly, Lizbeth returned to her feet and let the fire take her. Flames she had learned not to fear. The pain that wracked her body as they licked her skin was almost comforting. It almost felt like home. She took one deep breath and spread her arms out. A few steps back, and she allowed herself to fall over the edge of the bluff, down, down, down, plummeting to the icy water and jagged rocks below.

\-----------------------

"Wake up."

The low, gruff voice reached Lizbeth's ears slowly, as if the words had a long way to travel first. The dream lingered, mixing with her conscious state. Her skin tingled with the memory of fire, contrasting sharply with the chill of sweat and stale air conditioning. The scent of motor oil and cigars wrapped around her, familiar and foreign all at once. The words repeated, swimming through her foggy thoughts as she dragged herself to awareness. She did have a helping hand, though. A hand that grasped her shoulder and shook her awake.

"Lizzie," Bobby's gravelly voice grumbled. "Lizzie, it's time to wake up."

Lizbeth blinked slowly and rubbed at her eyes, forcing her bleary vision to focus in on her surroundings. She was in the passenger's seat of the Chevelle, parked along a suburban road lined by trees. There were no distinguishing features by which she could determine her location—it could be one of thousands of roads just like it, anywhere across the country. The sensation of waking up in an entirely different place than she fell asleep, once so familiar, now felt surreal and unsettling. Years of staying put had left her out of practice. Readjustment was necessary. Sunlight slanted in through the car window, making her eyes ache as she squinted into it. Groaning a bit, Lizbeth shifted in her seat and pushed herself into the sitting position, her skin sticking to the cracked vinyl of the seat. As she twisted her neck, an aching twinge shot down her spine—the result of sleeping in perpetually awkward positions.

"Caffeine?" she mumbled, holding out a hand. Bobby silently handed her a Red Bull. The outside was slick with condensation, but if its contents had once been chilled, that time had long since passed. Warm, sweet, and sticky—not something to look forward to, but necessary. She opened it and took a long draught, the taste of crushed sweet tarts and vinegar making her cringe. "Ugh, that's disgusting," she said, taking another long swig. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Draining the can, she crumpled it and tossed it in the back seat before turning to Bobby. "So where are we?"

"We're here," Bobby replied shortly. He pointed to a small house a little ways down the street. From its exterior it looked to be six shades of boring. Normal. Civilian. Hiding in plain sight. "That's the psychic's place—Pamela Barnes. She's an old friend. Best psychic in the state, one of the best I've met period. If anybody can find a needle in this damn haystack, it's her."

"Well here's to hoping," Lizbeth mumbled. She leaned her forehead against the window, her breath fogging the glass as she scanned the perimeter. Among the numerous sedans and minivans that dotted the driveways, no black '67 Impala was in sight. They had beaten the Winchesters there. Blowing out a long breath, she sank back in her seat and massaged at at the back of her neck, trying to work out the twisted knot that had taken up residence just next to her shoulder blade. "How long was I out?"

"'Bout the full four hours it took us to get here," Bobby said, studying her carefully. "You went out like a light as soon as we took off."

Lizbeth let out a small harrumph and frowned. "Seriously?" she muttered. "Four hours? I've been 'sleeping' for the past three years. You'd think I'd at least get some residual energy from that."

"Maybe all that so-called 'residual energy' was used up the time you went and decided to rise from the dead," he grumbled back.

Lizbeth let out a noise somewhere between a whine and a yawn and stretched in her seat, all the bones of her spine snapping back into place. "Why do you have to go and ruin my complaining with your logic?"

"There ain't any logic at this point. There's just guessin'."

"I'll keep complaining then."

Reaching up, she pulled down the visor and stared into the clouded mirror embedded in it. The morning light reflected off of her face, revealing a thin sheen of dewey sweat on her forehead. It collected in the crease between her eyebrows that somehow seemed to have deepened in her slumber. A symptom of unconscious worry. What's more, she felt Bobby's eyes on her, the level of scrutiny directed to her undiminished. Biting her lip, she quickly wiped the moisture away before clearing her throat and shooting him a grin.

The grin she wore was one Bobby knew well, all clenched teeth and humorous, but guilty eyes. It was her 'I-accidentally-burned-dinner' grin. Also known as the 'I-broke-the-kitchen-window-with-a-crossbow' grin or the 'I-downloaded-the-Anarchist-Cookbook-and-tried-to-make-napalm' grin. Devoid of such specific nuance it served as a vaguely apologetic expression, custom made for instances of feigned remorse for mistakes she didn't really care about. Or was actually proud of. Under normal circumstances, Bobby would have just rolled his eyes and moved on without a word, but this time he fixed her with a meaningful stare.

"You were havin' a bad dream."

It wasn't a question, it was a statement of fact. Lizbeth's grin faltered, shifting into a frown. "What makes you say that?"

"Usually when you sleep you're talkin' to yourself," he replied, his tone dark. "Mostly about food. I've heard you have conversations with yourself about spaghetti. Nothin' else, just spaghetti."

"Why wouldn't I? I love spaghetti. And most of the pasta family."

"Yeah—my finely tuned powers of deduction let me figure that one out all on my own."

Lizbeth returned his gaze evenly and shrugged. "So? What's your point?"

"My point is that when yer havin' a bad dream you get quiet and still," he said with a grunt. "An' this whole time I've been drivin', you've been sleepin' like you're dead."

Lizbeth exhaled sharply and tucked her hair behind her ears. "That's not funny, Bobby."

"I wasn't tryin' ta be funny," he grumbled back. "I ain't exactly known for my sense of humor."

The force of Bobby's scrutiny gave him the appearance of someone staring through time itself. Like he was summoning up a photograph of her three years ago and comparing it to this new version of Lizbeth, analyzing them for differences. Perhaps even for flaws in the design. Suspicion and concern—that's what she saw in the twitch of his jaw. Silver and holy water aside, he still wasn't certain she was the same person he had lost. And though that hesitation was all manner of understandable, she still felt a part of her heart breaking. Because she had changed. And what if what she had become didn't measure up?

At least he was actually looking at her now.

"I'm fine, Bobby," she reassured, raising her eyebrows pointedly. "Seriously, I'm good. Sometimes a bad dream is just a bad dream. It doesn't have to be anything more or less than that. You don't have to worry about me."

Bobby let out a humorless laugh and shook his head at her. "The last time I didn't worry about you I got a call three hours later tellin' me you were dead." In the rearview mirror Lizbeth saw Bobby's head twist to the side—studying her profile—but she just kept staring forwards. Her turn to avoid his gaze. He was about to ask her something. She scrunched up her face into a preparatory wince, waiting for the bomb to drop. "Lizzie, what happened to you?"

At that, Lizbeth's eyes fell shut. She had been waiting for that question. She was actually pretty surprised it had taken him this long to get to it. Letting out a long breath, she sank lower in her seat and folded her arms across her chest. "I already told you, Bobby," she murmured under her breath. "I don't know."

"How can you not know?" he growled. "Three years can't just disappear into the goddamn void."

"Why not?" she snapped. "Seriously, Bobby, why can't it? After everything we've seen what exactly makes that so impossible? Dean's back, I'm back—four months, three years, what the hell does it matter? I'm back—isn't that enough? Can't we just be happy about that?"

Her voice came out harsh and aggressive. More so than she had intended. But each question was a step forward, backing her into a corner. Bobby was looking for answers. Answers she didn't want to give or just plain couldn't. That she didn't understand enough to give. And, like any confused, cornered animal, she lashed out. But when met with the look on Bobby's face, regret instantly washed through her. That beard was enough to hide damn near any expression unless you knew to look for it, but he hadn't changed so much that Lizbeth couldn't recognize the hurt.

"I never saw your body," he murmured. "You were there, and then you weren't. All I got was pictures of you on the floor, a box of your old stuff, and no leads. How the hell am I supposed to kill the thing that killed you if I didn't know what it was in the first place? It took me a long time to turn that into a goodbye."

Lizbeth swore under her breath and ran her hands down her face. She thought of that closed door, that untouched room. How different it was from that case file. One static and fixed, the other rifled through, opened and re-opened, stained and used. Two different versions of her kept totally separate. Alive Lizbeth and dead Lizbeth. And now he had to deal with a third type. Undead Lizbeth, zombie Lizbeth, alive again Lizbeth. It was enough to hurt her brain, and she had been there each step of the way. Bobby was left with a few stray puzzle pieces and nothing to connect them.

"Bobby," she said, forcing her voice into a low, calm tone. "I'm not trying to erase everything you've gone through. I'm just saying that you don't have to feel that way anymore. I'm here, and I'm okay. I know that you like to hang on to your guilt because you feel like that's what makes you who you are at this point but....I don't want to be a painful part of your past. I want to be here and I want to be now. I want to be sitting next to you in this car. Can I? Or am I already in your rearview mirror? Am I just one of those tragic, unfixable things?"

A tense silence filled the car for a moment before Bobby finally spoke again. "You're sittin' next to me," he mumbled back. With a beleaguered sigh he reached past her, grasping the latch to the glove compartment and letting it fall open. "You've been sittin' next to me the whole damn time."

Eyebrows furrowing in confusion, Lizbeth peered into the gaping mouth of the glove compartment. Beyond the rusted hinges and yellowed registration papers was shoved an amorphous bulge of plushy material. Lizbeth pushed the other materials aside, reaching in and extracting the lumpy mass of material. She was met with the face of a horrifying nightmare creature—one ear, bugged eyes, tufts of fur missing at random intervals, and an old, dirtied bandaid failing to conceal a tear in the fabric. Some of the stuffing had escaped over the years, leaving the stuffed animal, if she could indeed still call it that, deflated and and sad. But that pathetic mass of worn thread, dirt, and memories wrenched a smile from her lips.

He had kept Fozzie Bear.

It took quite some effort for Lizbeth to bite back that smile, forcing her face into composure before leveling Bobby with an impassive stare. "I always knew you were a sap."

The sigh that followed told her that this response was not altogether unexpected, but wholly unappreciated. "Shut your damn mouth," Bobby grumbled.

"You're right, I'm sorry," she said with a solemn nod. "Robert Singer, you are a steely-eyed missile-man."

"That's more like it."

His gaze slid past her, focusing out the window beyond. The slam of a car door caused her to redirect her attentions as well. On the opposite side of the street, the Winchesters had pulled up in their Impala. Despite its age and wear, the car gleamed brightly in the morning sun, the hood waxed and polished, the silver grate and trim almost completely devoid of rust. Its current position among the cars of suburbia likely contributed to its distinguished aura. Among all the Toyotas and practical SUVs, it stood with swagger and defiance. The Winchesters unfolded themselves from the seats within and stood to their full height. The fact that the pair of them managed to fit in that car—or any car for that matter—stood as a miracle of modern physics.

"How the hell are they both that tall?" Lizbeth demanded, narrowing her eyes at the pair. "Seriously, did they have a side of human growth hormone with their wheaties during their formative years? Is this what Monsanto was doing all along?"

Apparently Bobby didn't think the quip merited a response, but it didn't make much a difference anyway. Dean lifted an arm in the air and waved to them, indicating for them to exit. Bobby let out a sigh and climbed out. Lizbeth, however, lingered in her seat for a moment. She wasn't sure how she felt about that gesture—it was oddly demanding and far too familiar. While she didn't dislike Dean—or at least she was pretty sure she didn't—she found herself eyeing him with a degree of hesitation. Trust was the sticking point. And while Lizbeth was open to trust, she didn't give it until reciprocation of said trust was on the table. And he might give in to a little light banter and exchanges of snark, but Dean did not trust her—not even a little bit. And Dean's suspicion of her...it made her suspicious of him.

In Lizbeth's opinion, there were all manner of different levels of trust. In this scenario, two applied. The first was the opportunistic type. It was the kind of trust born out of mutual self-interest and shared goals. Which honestly didn't actually involve trust at all. It was temporary and coincidental—easily broken as soon as the landscape shifted. And then there was that sort of implicit trust—the type where you knew the other person would act in your best interest, perhaps even against their own. Because they cared about you. Right now she, Dean, and, by extension Sam, shared that first type. She and Bobby shared the second.

But Bobby and Dean...apparently they shared that second type of trust too. Ultimately that should have made her feel better about the whole situation. The fact that Bobby could trust these guys meant she should be able to as well. But something held her back. The trust they shared—the understanding they seemed to have—it didn't make any sense to her. The Bobby she knew only trusted one person like that. Her.

Three years. Three full years. And now she was on the outside looking in. Lizbeth would be lying to herself if she insisted jealousy had nothing to do with it—that these guys and their apparent closeness to Bobby didn't elicit some twinge of resentment—but jealousy wasn't the sole ingredient in that feeling of queasiness in the pit of her stomach. Because even though none of them had a clue what was going on, she couldn't shake the feeling she was more in the dark than anybody else. And that they were keeping her that way.

Trust took patience. Betrayal could be quick. But options were not something she had.

Bobby rapped his knuckles against the window, startling Lizbeth out of her reverie. "C'mon," he grumbled. "Let's get this over with."

As Bobby strode over to the Winchesters, Lizbeth sucked in a deep, steadying breath. Her eyes flicked to the rearview mirror and she studied her expression. Lines marked the corners of her eyes, no longer from pain but from the uncertainty and fear that the lack of pain had introduced. It was there and yet not there—an echo. She smiled warmly and the lines seemed to retreat. So she kept the smile. She sure as hell wasn't going to let Bobby know that she still saw the flames when she closed her eyes or heard the screams when everything was quiet. "Get it together, Oswald," she whispered to herself, the words bright and forced as they escaped from behind clenched teeth.

"Three...two...one..."

When the count hit zero she threw herself out of the car, fresh-faced and ready. Hooking her thumbs through the belt loops of her jean skirt, she marched towards where the three men were grouped by the car. "Bobby, did you know anything about this?" Dean growled as she approached. "I mean this...this is a friggin' insult to quality manufacturing. It's blasphemy—that's what it is."

"What's blasphemy now?" she asked, striding up to them.

Dean let out an indignant scoff and gestured to the interior of his car. Lizbeth peered through the window to identify the source of his rage. The interior appeared fine. Perfect condition—or as close to perfect condition as a hunter's car could be. A few nicks in the seat cushioning from the odd knife, a few stains that looked suspiciously like blood and booze. But it had been swept clean, very, very well cared for. One might go so far as to call it authentic. Except, that is, for the one thing.

"You talking about the iPod jack?" she asked, glancing up at him.

"Yeah, I'm talking about the freaking iPod jack!" he snapped, eyes wide with belligerent rage. "I'm gone a few months and Sammy goes and turns her into the freaking douche-mobile."

"I can hook you up with a gramophone if you're into the old school stuff," Lizbeth interjected, jerking her thumb in the direction of the car. "I know a guy. He can hook you up with some vinyl and a hand crank and you'd be good to go. Party like it's 1919. Play some Beethoven and crank up that bass."

Dean's head rolled on his neck until he could level her with a thoroughly unamused look. "Not helpful, Red."

"Would it surprise you if I said I wasn't trying to be?"

"Dude, can we forget about the iPod jack," Sam grumbled back. "How are we seriously still talking about this?"

"Because you didn't respect the wheels," Dean shot back.

"I didn't disrespect the wheels, Dean," Sam sighed. "I just brought her into the 21st century. The cassettes are dated."

Dean turned to his brother, folding his arms across his chest and squaring his shoulders. "Classic," he returned, that low growl more menacing than ever. "The cassettes are classic."

"Nobody even sells cassette tapes anymore, Dean!" Sam whined in a tone that indicated they had had this conversation many, many times before. "You literally can't find them in stores anymore. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why?"

"Yeah—because people are freaking idiots," Dean growled in response. "How else do you explain boy bands?"

"Spoken like a closet Backstreet Boys fan," Lizbeth muttered.

Dean rounded on her, and angry finger poised in her face. "Stay out of this, Lizzie."

"It's Beth."

"Beth—whatever."

Dean turned back to his brother, and the world seemed to dissolve around them. A meteor could strike them dead where they stood, and the pair would still somehow find a way to be arguing about cassettes. Her eyes darted back and forth between the pair, like watching a tennis game of volleyed insults. All evidence indicated that they did this type of thing a lot. Back-and-forth semi-hostile bickering. And from the looks of things, they were still in the beginning stages. Eyeing them warily, she leaned towards Bobby. "Can you say something folksy and wise that gets them to shut the hell up," she muttered out of the corner of her mouth.

The look she received in response was not appreciative, nor did it hold much promise. Rolling her eyes, Lizbeth stepped forward towards the pair. "Okay," she interjected, holding her hands out to steady them both. "While this whole Luddite vs. technological innovation debate is truly fascinating, can we refocus our priorities a little bit? Yeah?"

At the sudden interruption, the both of them turned to her, their collective eyebrows twisted into a highly affronted expression. Like she was an intruder into some weirdly personal schtick. She most certainly was not on good terms with any of their eyebrows. Dean was the one who spoke. "Who the hell are you calling a Luddite?" he demanded, eyeing her with an 'I'm not completely clear on what you're talking about so I'm going to assume it's an insult' look.

"Don't worry, dude," she drawled. "You'll get the bragging rights when Skynet becomes self-aware. In the meantime...." She turned to Bobby, eyebrows raised expectantly. "Which house is it?"

Bobby sighed loudly and jerked his head over his shoulder, indicating a house a little ways down the block. "Just follow me," he grumbled. "And you lot, do us all a favor and shut the hell up. We ain't got time for this nonsense."

"Fantastic," she said, gesturing down the street. "Lead the way."

Still grumbling to himself, Bobby turned away from the three of them—'idjits' apparently being the blanket and technical term—and began to walk down the street, leaving them to trail after him. As Lizbeth followed, she wrinkled her nose at the surroundings. The closer she looked, the less the area screamed 'home of well-renowned psychic'. Nope, it read closer to Stepford what with the neatly pruned trees, perfectly manicured lawns, and 'curb your dog' signs. Hell, she was walking past an actual white picket fence. The sheer 'American dream' normality of it left her uncomfortable. These types of adventures were typically concluded in some dark alley or tetanus-ridden warehouse. But then again, she had been brutally murdered in front of a troop of snowmen, so her expectations were due for an adjustment.

Finally, Bobby turned down one of the walkways. Lizbeth picked up her pace, staying close as he ascended the stairs to the porch. The four of them—her, Bobby, Sam, and Dean—crowded in around the door. The dramatic tension swelled like a crescendo of movie theater music as Bobby lifted his hand to ring the bell. Lizbeth honestly had no concept of what would be waiting for them on the other side of the door. Surprise was inevitable as the door swung open, but Lizbeth was met with more surprise than expected.

The woman in the doorway displayed none of the hallmarks of your typical psychic. Sure Lizbeth was well aware the Hollywood image of the stooped, wizened old lady reading palms at a carnival was a crock of shit, but mischievous eyes and sultry smiles were not on the list of things to be anticipated. Paired with the low-cut Rolling Stones tank top and low rise jeans, she gave off an air more reminiscent of a hot, tough bartender than a psychic. The dark hair and sharp eyebrows leant just the right degree of inviting mystery.

Lunging forward, the woman wrapped Bobby into a warm, familiar hug. "Bobby!" she cried out, lifting him a few inches from the ground as she squeezed him tight.

"Well you're a sight for sore eyes," Bobby chuckled as he pulled out of the embrace.

"Uh huh," she mused, her voice holding the same sardonic overtones as the arch of her eyebrows. Finally, her eyes slid past Bobby to the three figures behind him. Her sly smile stayed firmly in place as her eyes flicked up and down their forms, measuring them up for some purpose or another. They lingered on Dean for a moment longer than could be deemed 'normal', a casual want writing itself into the upwards turn of her lips. "So are these the boys?" she inquired.

"Sam, Dean," Bobby said, nodding at each of them in turn. "Meet Pamela Barnes. The best damn psychic in the state."

"Hey," Dean replied, curling his lip into what Lizbeth presumed was the flirtatious edition of his patented smirk. Sam, on the other hand, pressed his lips together in a thin line and nodded in greeting before offering up a quiet 'hi'.

"Mm mm mmm," Pamela hummed, still eyeing Winchester number one. "Dean Winchester. Out of the fire and back in the frying pan. That makes you a rare individual."

He gave a shrug. "If you say so."

"And who is this?" Pamela continued, finally turning to Lizbeth. "You must me new in town, because before yesterday morning you weren't so much as a whisper on the wind."

Lizbeth snorted lightly and gave a smile of her own. "Actually I'm old in town."

Pamela looked to Bobby, her dark eyebrows drawing together in momentary confusion. "This here's Lizzie," Bobby explained. "Frank's kid. She died back in '05."

It was Pamela's turn to blink in surprise. She narrowed her eyes at Lizbeth, studying her carefully—looking through her rather than at her. "Beth, is it?" she said, her words picked carefully. "Well it looks like you've been on a long trip. Welcome home."

"Uh, thanks," Lizbeth murmured. "I guess."

That inscrutable look on Pamela's face persisted a few more short moments before breaking into a radiant grin. "So what are we all waiting for?" she demanded. "Let's get this party started! You can all come on in."

She stepped back through the doorframe and waved her arm, indicating for them all to enter. One by one they filed through, the sheer mass that was the Winchesters rendered all the more intimidating by cramped foyer. "So you hear anything?" Bobby inquired, getting down to business.

"Well," Pamela said, shutting the door behind them, "I Ouija-ed my way through about a dozen spirits. Nobody seems to know who broke your people out. Or why."

"So what's next?" Bobby insisted.

"A séance, I think," Pamela replied. "See if we can see who did the deed."

Lizbeth frowned at the idea. "Are we sure that's such a good move?" she asked, bouncing up and down on her feet a bit. "Correct me if I'm wrong—you're the expert here—but don't séances open up a two-way door of communication? We might want to get a look at this thing, but we probably don't want it to get a look at us."

"You're not gonna summon the damn thing here?" Bobby demanded, his tone suddenly urgent.

"Nah," Pamela said, chuckling at their concern. "I just wanna get a sneak peek at it. Kinda like the crystal ball without the crystal."

Immediately Pamela wandered down the hallway, hips swaying with a sort of inherent swagger. Each move appeared simultaneously deliberate and effortless. The implicit instruction was for them to follow, but Lizbeth found herself lingering in the doorway. It couldn't be that easy. Nothing was ever that easy. Secrecy always cost, usually in blood.

Dean, however, didn't seem to share her reservations. "I'm game," he announced loudly, following Pamela through the narrow hall. Sam was the next to go, offering a casual shrug as he marched forwards.

But Lizbeth stayed fixed. It wasn't because she was scared. Okay, she was scared shitless, the nervous twitch of her fingers barely concealed within balled up fists. But it wasn't of physical pain or a potential attack. Nothing was more terrifying than information, because with information came more questions, each more specific and worrisome the next. If Bobby found out what brought her back, it would only invite more. He'd keep peeling back the layers of the mysterious goddamn onion until they got to the rotten, putrid core.

"Come on," Bobby said, clapping a hand on her shoulder. "Let's get this over with."

The room they settled in was dark and dusty—walls painted black and deep maroon, heavy curtains covering the windows. They blotted out even the possibility of natural light seeping in. It looked like two different eras of human existence had rudely collided. On one hand the room featured such stately accoutrements as ornate filigreed candle sticks, elaborate crown molding, and rich velvet curtains. On the other, a giant framed photo of some topless rock star hung above the fireplace and an busted TV monitor sat in the corner. Worn, leather bound novels and CD cases littered the same shelves. A contradictory aesthetic that somehow seemed to work out. It had all the makings of a goth princess's castle. Which suited Pamela fairly well.

Lizbeth, like Sam and Dean, stood idly as Pamela and Bobby milled about. He yanked the curtains shut while she shook out a tablecloth, an intricate pentagram stitched into it. It was in that moment that Lizbeth realized how good Pamela actually was. The way she moved through the room was effortless—everything in its place, each detail memorized with vivid accuracy. Lizbeth stared down at the tablecloth, something like bitterness rising in her chest. So this would be the site of the big reveal. Such a revelation might be for better, it might be for worse. But regardless, things were about to get a hell of a lot more complicated.

"Dude, check it out!"

The sound of Dean's boyish excitement dragged her eyes away from the table. She followed his and Sam's gaze and found herself confronted with the shapely contours of Pamela's ass. The woman had crouched low to the ground, searching for fresh candles as those that dotted the room had be artfully melted to some degree or another, and directly above that shapely ass was a tattoo that read 'Jesse Forever'.

"Man," she muttered, glancing at Dean out of the corner of her eye. "Looks like I'm gonna have to start calling you Rick Springfield."

"What?" Sam demanded, shooting her a curious look.

"Rick Springfield?" Lizbeth repeated, eyebrows raised pointedly. "'Jesse's Girl'? Classic 80s song? You know what—never mind."

But Dean didn't seem to register a word being spoken, eyes lingering on the woman. And the ass. The siren call of the tramp stamp was too much for his brain to handle. He leered in Pamela's direction, and when he spoke again, his words weren't directed to Lizbeth or Sam. "Who's Jesse?"

A sound that could only be described as a seductive cackle slipped from Pamela's lips as she turned to face him. "Well, it wasn't forever."

"His loss," Dean replied easily.

Pamela got to her feet, candles in hand, and strode towards the table, her eyes not straying from Dean for a moment. "Might be your gain," she whispered as she flounced by.

Sexytime smile, swaying hips, intense eye contact held for one...two...three full seconds. That was all it took, really. Sufficient indicators were provided. An immature snort forced its way out of Lizbeth's nose. "Dude," she said, glancing over at Dean. "You are so totally in."

He flashed her a lecherous grin. "Couldn't have said it better myself, Lizzie."

Her lips twisted into a frustrated scowl. "It's Beth," she corrected for what felt like the hundredth time.

"Yeah, whatever," he muttered dismissively, eyeing his potential conquest as she carefully placed the candles at the center of the pentagram.

"She's gonna eat you alive," Sam laughed.

Dean's head snapped back around to smirk at his brother one more time. "Hey, I just got out of jail. Bring it."

Then, almost magically, Pamela materialized at their shoulders. Only this time that wolfishly seductive gaze was angled towards the younger, taller Winchester. "You're invited too, Grumpy."

"Wow," Lizbeth said, trying her level best not to break into all-out hysterics at Sam's 'confused puppy' face. "You know, I'm beginning to feel a little bit left out."

"Sorry, honey," Pamela sighed. She patted Lizbeth gently on the shoulder, her fingers grazing along the neck of her over-shirt in a way that almost made Lizbeth shiver. "I don't really swing that way anymore. Now if we were back in college, you would have been just my type. I'll let you know if anything changes,a though. These things tend to be....fluid."

"Really?" Lizbeth said, flushing a bit pink at the flattery. "Wow—that's really sweet. Thank you."

"The pleasure's all mine." Pamela let out another musical sigh, once again eyeing each of them, this time with no supernatural motivations behind her gaze. No, her motives were irrefutably human. They were all being heavily objectified, and as far as Lizbeth could tell not a one of them took issue with it. Pamela stepped back to the table, putting the finishing touches on the séance. As soon as she moved beyond earshot Dean whipped around, an emphatic finger already jabbed in Sam's face. "You are not invited."

"Rude," Lizbeth muttered.

Dean turned to her, his eyes narrowed in consideration as his lips twisted into a cheeky smile. "Now you on the other hand—"

"Not even if it would solve the energy crisis, dude," she deadpanned.

"Well that seems pretty irresponsible," he snarked back. "We have a duty to leave the world better than when we came in it."

"Jesus," Lizbeth snorted. "What granola-eating hippie fed you that line?"

"Don't remember the name," he mused. "But I do remember that frakking is bad and that she did a lot of yoga."

"Right," Lizbeth drawled, "because a strong pelvic floor is what's gonna save the world from greenhouse gas emissions."

He made a face and shrugged. "Well, it improved my world for a few hours."

It was Lizbeth's eyebrows' turn to be affronted. They shot upwards, the rest of her face trying to decide between amusement and contempt. Eventually it settled on a compromise between the two. "You're one of those hopeless romantic types, aren't you?" she drawled sarcastically. "Alert the authorities—chivalry is alive and well in....where the hell are we again?"

"Normal," Sam interjected. Dean and Lizbeth both turned to face him, a question mark written into their expressions. "The town we're in," Sam elaborated. "We're in Normal, Illinois. It's the name of the town. Normal."

Lizbeth blew out a long breath, eyes wide with disbelief. "Fuck, that's ironic."

Upon the table's preparation the lights were dimmed, bringing the darkness of midnight to the early morning. Six candles sat at the center of the table, the dim flicker offering them just enough light to see by. The five of them took their seats around the table, crowded in at each at a point of the pentagram—Pamela at the apex with Lizbeth and Dean on either side, while Bobby sat next to Lizbeth and Sam next to his brother. Each one of them had all the others in their sight, an arrangement which invited a host of awkward eye contact. All very ominous, though as occupational hazards went that was pretty much unavoidable.

"Alright," Pamela instructed. "Take each others' hands."

Lizbeth immediately reached out for Bobby's hands and squeezed it tight, but as she held out a hand for Pamela to take she felt nothing. When she looked up, Pamela's face was graced with an increasingly familiar self-satisfied expression. The cat that ate the metaphorical canary. "I need to touch something our mystery monster touched," she drawled.

"Whoa!" Dean exclaimed suddenly, accompanied by a loud thump beneath the table. "Well he didn't touch me there!"

Pamela let out another throaty chuckle, and drummed her fingers against the table with purpose. "My mistake."

Dean's eyes flickered around the table, actually looking a bit violated by the intrusion on his personal space. After a moment's hesitation, he rolled his eyes and shrugged his plaid over-shirt off his left shoulder, yanking up the sleeve to reveal that angry, red, blistering handprint. Pamela carefully covered it it with her own much smaller hand, the position of her fingers corresponding to the pattern of the print. She turned to Lizbeth, all eyebrows and smirks. Groaning internally, Lizbeth lifted her shirt, uncovering the identical handprint at her hip. "Huh," Pamela mused as she slid her cold hand over Lizbeth's scar, wrapping her arm around her waist. "This reminds me a lot of college."

"You care to elaborate?" Dean inquired, eyeing them with false casualness.

Pamela ignored the quip and looked between Lizbeth and Dean. "The two of you need to take each others' hands. You're the circle. I just interpret and channel the signals that circle creates."

Lizbeth rolled her eyes, but reached out her hand as well. It took a few moments, but Dean's hand soon enveloped hers, rough and calloused and covered with those same abrasions that littered her own. Strange to think that a day ago they had been in the same place, ripping wooden planks to bits in the hopes of finding sunlight on the other side. From the twitch of his jaw it seemed his mind had strayed to a similar thought. Lizbeth shifted uncomfortably in her seat. To share something so personal and so brutally specific with a stranger was no simple thing—to be simultaneously intrusive and intruded upon through no fault of their own.

"So," Lizbeth declared loudly, shrugging off any discomfort, "are we breaking out the s'mores and singing some Kumbaya, or what?"

"Patience, honey," Pamela murmured. "You gotta let me find my groove." She cracked her neck and took a deep breath. As she exhaled, her body seemed to loosen, easing itself into another state of consciousness. The eyes fell shut, and the groove was found.

With those closed eyes, the atmosphere in the room abruptly shifted. With Pamela's sly, teasing gaze eliminated from the equation, the mirth quickly retreated. Without the woman to give it context, the decor was rendered severe and imposing. The twist in Lizbeth's stomach only tightened when Pamela began to speak. Gone was the fun-loving, devil-may-care voice of a few moments before. It was serious. It was deadly.

"I invoke, conjure and command you, appear unto me before this circle. I invoke, conjure and command you, appear unto me before this circle. I invoke, conjure and command you, appear unto me before this circle."

Pamela repeated those words on a loop. On the first round, Lizbeth was wary. After the second and third repetition, Lizbeth began to feel a touch ridiculous—clutching hands and waiting for such a simple phrase to summon some dramatic, impressive force. After the third repetition, though, something began to change. First she felt the draft, warm and transgressing like a stranger's breath on the back of her neck. Though, to be fair, that might be the result of poor ventilation in a musty room.

But then the TV flicked on.

Lizbeth hadn't even known the thing was plugged in, disused as it seemed with its cracked screen and dust-laden knobs. But that outdated LED television suddenly snapped to life. The screen filled with static, white and black flecks writhing against each other into a living canvass of grey, like a swarm of colorless termites. It made her skin crawl. The shrill tone it emitted somehow felt like the same frequency as that she had heard in the diner with Tammy. And more than just a sound, it seemed to fill the air, flooding the room with the crackle of electricity. She could feel it, a tingling pressure on her skin. Part of her wanted to let go—to make it go away—but her stiff fingers remained encircling Dean's and Bobby's hands.

"Castiel," Pamela announced. Her voice rang clear as a bell amidst the ambient noise, otherworldly and commanding. It sent shivers down Lizbeth's spine. "No," Pamela continued, arguing with the invisible entity. "No, sorry, Castiel. I don't scare so easy."

"Castiel?" Lizbeth and Dean demanded in unison.

"It's name," she woman replied, her eyes still shut tight. Those perfectly shaped eyebrows drew together in concentration, small beads of sweat collecting between them. "It's whispering to me—warning me to turn back. I conjure and command you—show me your face!"

The phrase repeated over and over, almost independently of the movement of Pamela's lips. They took on a life of their own. The shrill note of the static grew, filling the room with an eery hum that could be felt in in her bones. Elemental. Unyielding. The table began to shake. At its center the candles rattled, threatening to tip over and set the cloth beneath them aflame. "I'm beginning to think this wasn't the best idea," Lizbeth murmured, more to herself than anybody else.

"Maybe we should stop," Bobby suggested, the concern in his voice matching Lizbeth's.

"I almost got it!" Pamela protested.

The table shook with ever increasing force and cold flooded the room as the flames of the candles shot upwards. The fire danced and twisted before her eyes. The pointed pangs of fear within Lizbeth's chest dulled as the light filled her vision, the vibrant orange blotting out anything and everything else. Cold. The world was far too cold without the flames. Goosebumps cropped up on her pale skin as it yearned for at least some of that warmth to which it had become accustomed. And then she was floating—far away from her body. It almost tickled.

A sharp pain in her left hand dragged Lizbeth back to awareness, blinking rapidly and gasping for the air that had been sucked from the room. She found herself leaning in, closer to the candles. With a violent twitch she jumped back. Her hand had cinched tight around Dean's, and his around hers. His calloused grip had broken the scabbed skin of her knuckles, allowing it to bleed freely once more. Neither of them let go. Her gaze snapped to his, the fear and alarm just as present in his features as it was in her own. Pupils constricted in spite of the dark that surrounded them, his green eyes bored into her hazel ones like he was demanding the answer to a question he hadn't asked in the first place.

Their eyes wrenched apart as an other-worldly shriek filled the room. It mingled with the static, pushing it back until the only shrill note left came from Pamela's lungs. For the first time since the séance began, Pamela's eyes few open. Instead of deep brown irises, they were filled with flames. The candles extinguished themselves as the woman collapsed backwards, chair toppling over and sending her to the floor. The rattling of the table ceased. The TV, it's screen now shattered, gave a pathetic click as the power shut off.

Lizbeth shoved her chair back, letting it clatter uselessly behind her as she dropped to Pamela's side. Her small figure lay on the ground, rigid except for the dry, broken sobs of pain. A curtain of brown curls had fallen over her face, obscuring it from view. Lizbeth brushed the hair away, but the moment the curtain had been drawn back, her hand stilled. Pamela's body shook with the force of each sob, but it wasn't tears that leaked from her eyes. Thin lines of red tracked down her cheeks. Rivulets of blood.

Bobby's voice boomed above her head. "Somebody call 911!"

Pamela's eyes were squeezed shut, but the tears of blood continued to stream down her face unimpeded. Lizbeth's lungs shuddered in her chest as she collected the woman's head into her lap, carefully stroking her hair. Pamela's hand shot up, grasping desperately at Lizbeth's arm. Something to hold on to. Someone to hold on to. Finally, the woman's eyelids fluttered open again to reveal two cavernous pits of black. One look at the thing, and her eyes had been scorched from her. Every muscle in Lizbeth's body seized, but she continued to stroke Pamela's hair. "I've got you," she whispered. "I've got you."

Whatever had brought them back, it was not good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always welcomed. They feed the muse that lives in my basement. And she's hungry and currently eating my bedsheets.


	6. I See You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of suspicion and feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: 'Supernatural' isn't mine. Shocking, right? But it's true. If there are any similarities in content or dialogue, it has probably originated with the show.
> 
> Okay, so this chapter is a bit of filler. I intended at first to add that scene with Dean and the 'sound' at the end, but it would have felt tacked on and out of place. So you guys are stuck with 5,000+ of feelings and snark. I hope you like it.

Hospitals smelled of failure. That's what Lizbeth's father had told her when she was a kid. In the real world with real stakes, vodka took the place of antiseptic and bourbon that of painkillers. Tequila worked in a crisis, but was not preferred. If there was blood, find a rag and get the duct tape. Weekend warriors went to the doctor for their lollipop and a pat on the head—real hunters made do. Hospitals meant that you had fucked up bad—that you had shown yourself not to be self-sufficient. The one time Lizbeth woke in a hospital bed, almost sixteen with bones broken and blood running on empty, her first sensation had been shame. Shame that only magnified as she wept into the crisp, starched pillow, the tears she had to offer stolen by dehydration.

Today she had failed. She had failed without knowing what she was trying to achieve in the first place.

Lizbeth stared through the sliding doors, 'Intensive Care Unit' frosted on the glass. Bobby had rushed through with the paramedics, clutching Pamela's hand as the woman shuddered with pained sobs. Lizbeth had stayed on the other side. Such a bizarre injury would invite the police, and with the police came questioning. And not only were they wholly without explanation, but interacting with local authorities was not an advisable course of action when one has been legally dead for three years. At least Dean's death had been afforded the dignity of anonymity. In that file Bobby handed her, Lizbeth had found newspaper clippings about her and Amy that spanned a solid six months. Hell, they were practically an episode of Dateline. Meaning she was benched until they could scrounge up a few fake IDs. Meaning that, once again, she was left without the slightest clue of what was going on.

Perhaps the Winchesters had a better idea than she did. Around the time she climbed into Bobby's Chevelle, trailing after Bobby and Pamela as they took off in the ambulance, they had driven off in the Impala. Presumably headed back to Pontiac. Sam appeared competent enough—he would at least have some decent resources with him. Or maybe they would have to wait until they made it back to Bobby's library. It was more complete than any other she had seen, and facing such an obscure enemy they would have to cast a wide net. At least they had a lead now. A name. Castiel. But that lead had cost a woman her eyes. Lizbeth wished she could say it was worth it.

Information of Pamela's condition slowly filtered through those glass doors, allowing Lizbeth to cobble together a plausible story from snippets of nurse's gossip. She had placed herself strategically next to the nurse's station, sunk low in an uncomfortable, plastic waiting room chair with ears piqued. The one in the sea foam green scrubs—Nick—seemed to be the least closed-mouthed. From his flapping lips she had managed to snatch up such choice phrases as 'scorched optic nerve', 'self-cauterized vessels', and 'charred tissues'. The picture they painted was grim, but not unexpected. Lizbeth had seen the flames. A small part of her had hoped they were a trick of the light or a reflection of the candles—that the empty sockets had been a projection of her own freakish nightmares.

No such luck.

As the hours ticked on and the blaring TV from the corner of the waiting room had cycled through a number of morning talk shows, Lizbeth found the anxiety in her mounting. Everything within that waiting room was closed in. The clock on the wall stood behind a grate, the TV was enclosed in a metal cage, security wire lined the interior of the sole window. Time took a different cadence—like a metronome ticking more and more slowly, the seconds seemed to stretch. By the time Maury Povich—who somehow managed to survive three additional years—had taken up residence on the screen, her skin itched with the stillness.

Between those agonizing seconds, Lizbeth formulated a three point plan to make it through those doors in the ICU.

Point one involved stalking. And thievery. Lizbeth wandered the halls until she found an orderly pushing along a laundry bin filled with soiled bedding. Thankfully, his apathy and/or exhaustion had settled in to the point where he mindlessly went about his work, Shania Twain blasting out of his iPod. Tracking him to the hospital laundering facility was easy. As he pushed his wheeled laundry basket through the door, Lizbeth caught it before it closed, wadded up a piece of paper she had ripped from the waiting room magazines, and shoved it into the latch. As the orderly dumped the sheets and shoved his way back into the hall, she was able to slip through. Once inside, she had her pick of the malodorous scrubs and stained lab coats.

Point two involved pickpocketing. Which technically was also a form of thievery. All in all the easiest part of the plan—identify a poor, sleep-deprived sap and run into them, apologize profusely, and slip by with their badge pinched between her index and middle finger. All that much easier when carrying a clipboard—also stolen. Walk quickly while holding a clipboard and people were infinitely less likely to question you or your motives. Your motives were, no doubt, written down on said clipboard. That strategy could get you anywhere—back stage at a concert, to the front of a line at Disney Land, possibly the floor of the U.N.

And the grand finale, point three. Crocs, courtesy of the OBGYN asleep in the on call room. To sell one's self as a hospital employee, orthopedic shoes were key. Step three, also thievery. Maybe it was more of a one-point plan. Steal the hospital's shit and walk quickly. But 'three-point plan' had a more impressive ring to it.

With all ingredients in place, Lizbeth strode towards the doors of the ICU. Her head ducked down to scan that Highlights magazine she had attached to a clipboard with an unwarranted degree of scrutiny, she waved the ID vaguely in the direction of the nurse's desk. The automatic doors whooshed open, hitting her with a face full of cold air, and she stepped through.

The acrid stench of Lysol swarmed Lizbeth's senses. Particles of it seemed to circulate in the air, a lame attempt to cover she smell of decay. A cacophony of heart monitors filled her ears, layered upon each other in a shrill, unsynchronized symphony. The beds sat separated by curtains of a pale, soothing blue, as if subdued colors could somehow facilitate recovery from various life-threatening traumas. It took four tries before she pulled back the right one.

Pamela lay flat on the bed, her dark, tangled hair contrasting sharply with the white sheets. She seemed to be asleep, chest rising and falling gently—not shuddering violently as it had before. All manner of tubes jutted out from the crook of her elbow, her IV attached to several sacks of clear fluid. Bobby sat beside her, chair pulled close to the edge of the bed, head stooped down, and hands folded in his lap in resignation. The brim of his hat seemed to dip lower than usual, like a flag hung at half mast. Recognition of a loss. Lizbeth pulled the curtain back further and stepped through, the movement alerting Bobby to her presence. He looked up at her, eyes red and bloodshot, and blinked at her change in attire.

"You shouldn't be sneakin' in here, Lizzie," he murmured. "The police took my statement, but they could come back."

"Fuck tha police," she replied, shooting him a half-hearted smile.

He sighed and turned back to Pamela. "Yeah...that's what I figured you'd say."

Lizbeth grabbed a spare chair and dragged it next to his. They sat shoulder to shoulder, both staring at the consequences of the shitstorm in which she had managed to entrench herself. "How's she doing?" Lizbeth murmured.

"She's stable," Bobby replied. "Her life's not in danger or nothin'. She got hysterical in the ambulance so they gave her morphine to knock her out. They're movin' her out of the ICU soon."

Pamela lay before them, perfectly still with her heart monitor bleeping steadily at 62 beats per minute. Calm. Peaceful. When Lizbeth looked at her she saw a snarky Sleeping Beauty, ready to wake up, kick some ass, and flirt literally anyone's pants off. But the sunken skin around the woman's eyes shattered any such illusions. Her eyelids rested flat and those mischievous eyebrows has slipped further down her face. "And her eyes?" she asked, turning to Bobby. "Is she gonna—"

"She's not gonna see again," Bobby answered before Lizbeth could get the question out. "An' the staff is mighty curious about what could blast the eyes out of an otherwise healthy woman's skull."

The breath she had been holding escaped through Lizbeth's teeth in an angry hiss. "Yeah, well they're gonna have to get in line on that one," she muttered. "This fucker has gone straight to the top of my shit list. Let's find out what it is so I can find out how to kill it. Slowly, painfully, and possibly with some mocking one-liners that will cripple its self-esteem."

"Whoa, slow your roll there, missy," Bobby said. "This here thing brought two people from the back of the dead and lit a woman's eyeballs on fire for lookin' at it. You can't be sprintin' at the thing half cocked."

"Well, I intend to be fully cocked," she replied. Bobby opened his mouth to respond, but she held up a hand to cut him off. "Don't—I'm fully aware of how that sounded. But we have a name. And as terrible as this is, what happened to Pamela is a data point. We can use that. We need to hit the books."

"Sam's good at that," Bobby replied, nodding his head slowly. "So's Dean when he has a mind to be."

Lizbeth bit back a sigh, and tucked her hair behind her ears. It hung limp and oily around her face, as good of a physical manifestation of her current state of mind as she could think of—tired and impotent. The Winchesters seemed to fill all the necessary niches, leaving her with...nothing in particular. An irrelevant appendage on an already functional machine. Which left her in an uncomfortably vulnerable position. She peered at Bobby out of the corner of her eye. "You trust them?"

Bobby's head sagged on his neck, but he nodded in assent. "Yeah, Lizzie, I trust them."

"You trust them to be smart about this?" she pressed. "Because if they're about to pull some Dukes of Hazzard shit when we're anything less that 100% cocked, there might be problems."

His answer came a little slower that time, accompanied by a slow, thoughtful nod, much more hesitant than all those nods previously given. "I trust that they'll be as smart as they can given the pressin' nature of the clusterfuck in which we currently find ourselves."

Lizbeth narrowed her eyes at him. That answer was vague at best—layered with a ton of asterisks and conditionals. But from where she sat, in a hospital chair wearing marinara stained scrubs—or at least what she hoped was marinara—she wasn't faced with a ton of other promising options. "Okay, Bobby," she said, bobbing her head with reluctant agreement. "I'm with you, but I just wanna put it on the record that I'm going out on a bit of a limb with this. Because Sam might be hiding a pair of sexy librarian glasses in his other pants, but he also tried to kill Lilith solo. I don't care if he's a research god. That's some textbook self-destructive bullshit, and that's not what I'm about."

The torn expression on Bobby's face spoke volumes. She was chucking out conversational darts, and that one hit a little too close to home. But though her words may have pricked, no denial surfaced. "Sam lost his head when his brother died," Bobby replied. "I'm hopin' that now that Dean's back he's found it again."

An involuntary frown tugged at the corners of her lips. "Dean's not exactly a monument to rationality and open discourse either."

"An' I suppose you are?" Bobby deadpanned.

"Whoa, hey," Lizbeth scoffed, holding out a hand. "I might not be handing out copies of my dream journal, but I do not withhold information where it's relevant. And I consider said information carefully. Plus this is the guy who signed a crossroads deal. Which you know...noble. But reckless. I've lived that way before—it didn't end well."

Bobby raised his head, peering at her from under his cap. Sometimes she swore her skin was glass, because that man could look straight through her. "They're not your dad," he said gruffly.

"Okay," she said, doing her best not to appear unnerved by his perspicacity. "I get that you trust them. But Bobby—they love you. I'm nobody to them—I'm the one third-wheeling it here. What I want to know is if I can trust them."

"They're not their dad either."

Words of doubt rested on the tip of her tongue like a snake, coiled and ready to strike. Everything was happening too fast and she did not have enough information. About the thing she was fighting or about who she was working with. And of all the information she did have access to, the vast majority was not promising. She looked back to the woman lying on the bed. It had barely been a day and their bullshit had already claimed its first victim. That trajectory was not promising. Hospitals meant failure. And the lot of them had sure as shit failed Pamela.

"We need to know more about this thing," she said, glancing at Bobby out of the corner of her eye. "I vote we head back to the Salvage Yard and regroup. Tear through that library of yours and see if we can turn over the right stone. See what's hiding beneath it."

"I'll call the boys," Bobby replied. "See what they're thinkin'. Let 'em know that she's gonna be okay."

That gong of jealousy rang in Lizbeth's chest once more, but she inclined her head in silent acquiescence. "Okay," she muttered. "You finish up here and I'll grab some chow for the road. I'm gonna go make friends with the vending machine."

"An' I'll call someone in the area," Bobby murmured. "Make sure she's not alone when she wakes up."

Lizbeth pushed her chair back, clapping what she hoped was a comforting hand on Bobby's shoulder as she stood. But as she drew that curtain shut behind her—watching him watch Pamela—it became clear that any gesture was an empty one. They offered nothing concrete. There was no comfort to be found within the walls of a hospital. The only comfort to be felt came with the ability to leave it.

Guilt curled inside Lizbeth, filling her up until it was the only thing held in by her skin. Add another body to the count. Meg, Amy, Pamela. Possessed, dead, blind—a goddamn resume of pain that trailed behind her. And the root fucking cause of their varying degrees of tragedy? Her. In some way it all tracked back to her. Which left her in the uniquely enraging position of being the victim and the blamed. Neither case gave her any choice in the matter. She was at the eye of a hurricane, watching the world being ripped to shreds around her not being able to do a damn thing about it. If whatever was after her didn't kill her soon, the frustration would do it for them. Her hands twitched with the desire to hit something, but what was she supposed to hit? She couldn't fight static. She couldn't shoot a sound.

And then there was that damn dream. The fire, the pain. All echoes of experiences she did not care to remember. They hovered just at the edge of her memory. She knew they were there, and she knew what they meant. But as long as she refused to acknowledge them, then maybe—just maybe—she could achieve some modicum of peace. The best way to lie was to believe your own version of the truth, and she was believing hers as hard as she could. But as much as she tried to run, reality had a way of catching up. Like Peter Pan chasing his damn shadow. He didn't need his shadow—why the hell couldn't he just let it go? Let it live its own life doing the shit it wanted to do.

Maybe that's why none of this felt real yet, why that dream had felt more tangible to her than anything she had yet to experience in her new, waking life. She was trying to be the shadow. The memories that kept trying to force themselves on her—they were Peter Pan. They were the real bit. But she didn't care for them to be real, so here she was waist deep in denial with no intention of wading out of it.

Fuck, she really needed to eat.

Trailing back through the purgatory that was the ICU waiting room, Lizbeth made her way towards the vending machines. In keeping with the hospital's apparent aesthetic, they featured the more disappointing offerings of the snack kingdom. Chips were baked where they should have been fried and peanut butter appeared where it had no business being in the first damn place. And, ironically enough, a full supply of Lifesavers. As far as first meals went, it was angled towards the depressing. Glancing to the left and right, she ensured that she was alone before grasping the top and side of the vending machine. It took three solid shakes before the satisfying thump of food hitting the bottom reached her ears. Lizbeth let out a small sigh of satisfaction before ducking down to snatch up her prize. Unfortunately, what she was met with was one of those cheese cracker-peanut butter abominations. She scowled down at the snack in disappointment.

"Motherfucker. Goddamn peanut cheese."

A light chuckle rang behind her, making Lizbeth spin wildly in place. She found herself facing a petite woman with dirty blonde hair. Her face was long and thin with high cheek bones and pale skin that suggested she didn't often venture out from under the roof of the hospital. All details of her attire suggested a degree of intense professionalism—her salmon-colored scrubs were pressed and starched, nails clean and neatly trimmed, hair collected at the base of her neck. The lines around her mouth hinted at a more severe disposition, rendering the smirk that pulled at those thin lips oddly foreign, even on the face of a stranger. The woman leaned against the wall opposite the vending machines, arms folded across her chest in a sort of loose swagger.

"Petty theft?" she said, her tone light and laughing. "And here I was thinking you're supposed to be the good guys. Honestly, Betty, you're better than this."

The nickname made Lizbeth go cold. Of all the names she went by, she had only ever heard that from the one person. Just the one. She slowly shifted on her feet, leaning against the glass of the vending machine. Biting the plastic wrapper, she ripped open the packaging and began nibbling on the contents. Her dry mouth made the crackers difficult to swallow, but she used the moment to survey the woman. The name tag pinned to the pristine lab coat read 'Carol', but the name forming on Lizbeth's tongue was another one entirely.

"Veronica," she finally said, her voice remaining even despite the rapid thumping of her heart. "I gotta say, I didn't expect to see you this soon."

A snort forced it's way through the woman's nose and her eyes flicked black for a moment, returning to their natural color between blinks. It almost felt like a form of greeting—a wave or a shake of the hand. "Well what can I say," the demon replied. "You leave without so much as a goodbye. You don't call, you don't write. It makes a girl wonder what she did wrong."

Lizbeth's jaw twitched, but otherwise she held firm. "What do you want, Meg?" she deadpanned.

The smirk on the demon's face widened, revealing more teeth than should viably fit within the human skull. "I thought you weren't going to call me by that name. You were pretty adamant about it last time we spoke."

"Yeah, well it's expedient."

"Funny," Meg replied. "Because last I checked you were all about wasting people's time."

"Yeah, I'm a tease like that," Lizbeth snapped back. She folded her arms across her chest, fists clenched until those bright orange crackers crumbled to dust. "Are you here to kill me again? Because in case you noticed, it didn't quite stick the last time you tried it. You willing to open yourself to that kind of embarrassing misstep all over again?"

Meg let out a low chuckle, swaying slightly as she readjusted herself where she leaned against the wall. The movement was unnaturally fluid, almost serpentine. She was the snake trying to hypnotize the charmer, lulling her prey into a false sense of security before she struck. Or maybe she was more like a cat, smug and self-satisfied, relaxed and always ready for a swipe of the claws. Whatever animal she did take notes from, it was that variety whose spines seemed too fluid to be made of so brittle a thing as bone. But the looser Meg became inside that body, the more rigid Lizbeth's muscles seized. "Nah," Meg drawled. "Why would I want to kill you now? The fun has barely started yet."

At that admission, Lizbeth relaxed in spite of herself. Demon's lie. Or bend the truth until it becomes one. "Why are you here then?" she demanded.

"Would you believe that this is a tourist destination?" Meg smirked. "The mojitos are supposed to be fabulous."

Lizbeth's eyes rolled involuntarily and her head fell back against the vending machine with a loud thunk. "Goddamn it you like the sound of your own voice."

"You know, I think I do," she mused. "It has a certain.....soothing quality to it, don't you think?"

"If you find listening to a bunch of cats in the spin cycle soothing, then yeah. Sure. Record that shit and sell it at Starbucks."

Meg's lips twitched with restrained laughter and stepped from the wall. The movement made Lizbeth shrink back instinctively, promoting that iota of amusement into a full blown grin. She strode forward, forcing Lizbeth to the side as she advanced on the vending machine. Extracting all manner of change, she shoved the coins one by one into to the machine and punched a few buttons. With the fatal whirring of the machinery, Lizbeth saw the sole bag of Doritos fall to the bottom. That pale, cold hand swept the Doritos and Meg retreated back to her position, munching loudly. The bitch was evil even down to the most petty of gestures.

"So," Meg declared, pausing to allow the giant crunch of chips to echo in the hall, "you're riding with the Winchesters now. I mean, I guess that shouldn't be all that surprising. Morons like you tend to cluster. Oswalds and Winchesters. Thorns on the same rose—a bunch of pricks."

At the mention of the Winchesters, Lizbeth's breath hitched. Not in any externally noticeable way, but enough to make her adjust her next breath to avoid a gasp. Wary though she might have been of anything coming from Meg's lips, her commitment to suspicion of the Winchesters found itself strengthened. The number of things they could have chosen to not tell her was infinite. "So you know the Winchesters, then?" she demanded, not bothering to conceal her uncertainty.

Meg delicately placed another chip on her tongue before biting down, all gnashing teeth. "I tangoed with them a bit back in the day," she sighed. "Had some good times. What—they didn't tell you?" The question hung in the air, its lilting innocence adding to its menace. Her fingers went to her lips, licking them clean of that orange powder. "No," she murmured, the tone knowing and mischievous. "I don't suppose they would."

Lizbeth's eyes likely should have widened in shock. Some sensation of surprise should have cropped up within her. But instead what spread inside her was a sort of vindicated numbness, satisfied that her assumptions about the Winchesters held some water, but none the happier for it. "You old friends?" Lizbeth muttered bitterly. "Hold potlucks, co-host dinner parties, that kind of shit?"

"Well they did exorcise me that one time," Meg sighed. "Sent me straight to you as a matter of fact. You could say that Dean—he set you and me up. A match made...well not in heaven, obviously."

"I suppose you think I know what you're talking about," Lizbeth drawled, the feigned nonchalance ringing false even to her own ears. Her hands cinched tighter, reducing those orange crackers to dust. The salt worked its way into the cuts that still littered her hands, making them sting.

Meg clucked in disapproval. "Aw, babycakes, are you really going to pretend not to remember all our special time together. I mean you weren't my first but you're where I learned all my best moves."

Each word took a sledgehammer to a brick wall—the one separating this world from that other one. A trembling lip, a hint of sweat at the brow—any appearance of vulnerability would invite Meg to pounce, to swing harder. And Lizbeth had invested far too much time and effort building up a fortress inside her own head to let some demon waltz through a fucking gate. So the defenses were shored up. Take a breath and count down from ten.

Lizbeth cocked her head to the side and wrinkled her nose in contempt. "I guess the experience just didn't do it for me."

Meg stuck her lower lip in a petulant pout and sagged back against the wall. "I suppose that's all well and good. Getting stuck with those self-righteous asshats is torture in itself. I mean if I had to third wheel it with that case study in codependence...And that old grump. What is it about Robert Singer that attracts the strays. He's like the Ellis Island of second generation hunter reject kids. Give me you sad, your needy, your emotionally unvalidated—"

"I'm sorry," Lizbeth interrupted. "Are you gonna charge me for this therapy session? Because as you can probably tell, having walking in on me beating the shit out of a vending machine, I'm a little strapped for cash."

"Whoa, defensive much?" Mel scoffed. "You bummed that you're not the solo charity project anymore? The Winchesters closing in on your territory?"

"I'm inviting you to shut the fuck up."

The cackle the woman let out was unnatural, louder than that petite, five foot frame was intended to accommodate. "Aw," Meg drawled. "It looks like somebody's upset about being picked last in kickball. If it makes you feel better, Betty, I'd pick you first. Sam's got the brains and Dean's got the pretty, but you? You've got the common sense. And that is an attractive quality in a person."

"That's sweet," Lizbeth nodded. "And it might make me feel better if it wasn't coming from a murderous psychopath."

"Aw, stop it, honey. You're making me blush."

"God, I am going to strangle you to death with your own tongue."

"Now you're just flirting with me."

Lizbeth rolled her eyes heavily and crossed over to the trash can, tossing the now thoroughly ruined crackers away. The crumbs stuck to her sweaty palms, and she wiped them off on the scrubs as she turned back to Meg. "So did you come here to gossip me to death or are we going to get on with the gore and bloodshed?"

"Didn't I already tell you I wasn't going to kill you?" Meg demanded, eyebrows arched. "Come on, Betty, where's the trust?"

"In Middlebury, Vermont," Lizbeth deadpanned.

Meg made a face, but nodded in acceptance. "Okay, that's fair."

Lizbeth stared at Meg, eyebrows raised expectantly. For once the bitch opted to stay silent, munching on the goddamn Doritos. After a few moments of quiet as unnerving as it was annoying, Lizbeth threw her hands in the air in frustration. "Are we gonna get this house call over with or what? Why are you here?"

Meg sighed, idly inspecting the nails of her new body. "You know the boss," she finally murmured. "He runs a tight ship. You and your newest bestest buddy Dean breaking out...that's a pretty sizable security breach. Were you honestly expecting not to get tailed?"

"Security breach? You mean—"

"What, am I being too obtuse?" Meg snapped, fixing Lizbeth with a scathing look. "I'm talking about hell, baby! You know, the hotel where the check-in time is death and the check-out time is never? You and Dean were some big name guests. And you were on the same cell block too. Somebody's getting fired. And by fired I mean mercilessly tortured, but you should know all about that by now, right?"

At the word 'hell', Lizbeth bit down on her tongue. Blood filled her mouth, warm and metallic and familiar. The topic had cropped up many a time in the conversation the past day, but this was the first time it had been applied to her. The reality of her dream pushed at the boundaries of her subconscious, trying to fight its way forward, but she shoved it back with force. This was her one-point plan for dealing with resurrection. Deny, deny, deny, deny.

Shaking off those thoughts, Lizbeth leveled Meg with a skeptical look. "So you're saying you guys had nothing to do with this," she said. "Why are you telling me that? This is the kind of shit you people usually take credit for."

"You people?" Meg declared, eyebrows raised pointedly. "Way to paint all demons with the same brush."

Lizbeth pressed her lips together in a wan smile. "There's not a crapload of nuance to you guys, no. Just different editions of the same book."

Meg jutted out her lower lip in a pout and shrugged. "Well I guess you're not entirely wrong," she sighed. "Management wanted me to go the whole intimidation route. Pretend to know what was up, maybe threaten you a little. Probe around until we could figure something out. But we both know you're a smart enough cookie to figure out when someone's fishing, so I'd rather not waste our time."

"Oh, so that's what we're doing here?" Lizbeth interjected, gesturing back and forth between the two of them. "We're saving time?"

"No, we don't know what busted you out," Meg barreled on. "So it looks like everyone's playing a game of 'Guess Who's Coming To Dinner'. And we're all on pins and needles."

Lizbeth ran her fingers through her hair, her scalp stinging as she yanked through the knots that had accumulated. "So let me get this straight," she said, twisting the locks between her fingers. "You possessed some random doctor and tracked me to this hospital to tell me that you don't know anything."

"Maybe I just missed you."

"Needy."

Meg pushed herself off the wall and took a several small steps forwards. Lizbeth forced herself to stay still in the face of her approach, fighting back the instinct to flinch as she extracted her fingers from her hair. Meg grasped Lizbeth's chin in her hand and angled her face towards her, forcing eye contact. The hands were cold against and clammy, like a defrosting chicken, but the grip was strong. How much was alive in that body, and how much was dead? She peered at Lizbeth through narrowed eyes, reading her face like journal entry. The breath that hit Lizbeth's skin was warm and moist, somehow smelling of meat and blood. "We'll be seeing more of each other," she whispered.

Leaning even further forwards, Meg planted a quick kiss to the tip of Lizbeth's nose. Her wide, manic grin filled the whole of Lizbeth's vision as she patted her cheek, not hard enough to hurt but leaving behind enough of a sting to make it clear that she could if she were so inclined. Those twisted lips parted, allowing billows of smoke to slip between them, spilling to the floor. The dull, fluorescent lights flickered ominously above her head and the hum of electricity filling her ears like a swarm of bees. The smoke filled the room, swirling around Lizbeth and turning the room to black before sinking down through the crack in the laminate tile.

The host stood for a moment, deflated and swaying ominously on her feet. Lizbeth darted forwards as the woman toppled, managing to catch her under the arms. As small as the woman was, the dead weight hit her like a sack of bricks, knocking the air out of her lungs and pinning her against the drink machine. The head lolled to the side, hair falling out of its neat bun. Lizbeth swore under her breath, clutching the woman to her chest. Sucking in a deep breath, she lifted her hand to the woman's face, hoping she'd be able to feel hers as well. The warm, moist air that hit her palm allowed her to exhale. One death that wasn't on her hands.

Lizbeth's knees gave under the weight of the woman, sliding slowly against the vending machine until she found herself sitting on the cold floor, a limp body still rapped in her arms. Her head fell back against the machine and she sat motionless, a tangle of limbs collapsed in the hall. She swore loudly. Bloodless though this interaction may have been, it was another mess to be cleaned up. Unconscious people in hospitals were a dime a dozen, but staff didn't qualify and Lizbeth found herself a waiting room and a half dozen people away from any beds.

"What in the damn hell?"

Bobby's voice drew her eyes up. He stood over her, eyes wide and mouth hanging open at the inexplicable scene being painted before him. Lizbeth wriggled out from under the 120 pounds of surgeon and scrambled to her feet. Her lips pulled into a tight grimace, she turned to Bobby and planted her hands on her hips.

"Hey, Bobby. So we're kinda fucked."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I'm insecure about how this came off. As you probably guessed from content, Lizbeth was in hell. And she knows she was in hell. But she's repressing the shit out of it to the point that she actually refuses to acknowledge it as the truth. I was aiming for a big reveal later on in the story, but given that this is from her perspective, it's kinda a difficult thing to deny in the narrative. I'm hoping that it'll still work out in some super-dramatic way, but that's the long and short of it. And now I've said too much....
> 
> THANK YOU FOR READING! REVIEWS/COMMENTS ARE APPRECIATED.


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